Keep This Wolf
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM slash. There is no reason for the Ministry to pull Unspeakable Draco Malfoy off his Dark artifacts detail and assign him to negotiate with Harry Potter's werewolf pack. Draco suspects a set up. When he meets Harry, however, he has to wonder if it's a different kind of set up than he anticipated. Updated every Tuesday.
1. Bloody the Circle

**Title: **Keep This Wolf

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco

**Warnings: **Creaturefic (Harry is a werewolf), violence, some gore, angst

**Rating: **R

**Summary: **Draco knows full well that he's being set up. There is no other reason to pull an Unspeakable out of the Department of Mysteries and assign him to negotiate with a werewolf pack. But when he learns the werewolf leader is Harry Potter, Draco wonders if the setup isn't a different kind than he anticipated.

**Author's Notes: **A fic for enamoril, who asked for a story like my "Business Meetings," where Draco is the leader of a group of vampires and Harry their Ministry-appointed negotiator, but reversed, with Draco as the negotiator and Harry as the werewolf. This story will be updated every Tuesday until it's finished. The title comes from the poem "Wilderness" by Carl Sandburg:

_THERE__is a wolf in me … fangs pointed for tearing gashes … a red tongue for raw meat … and the hot lapping of blood—I keep this wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the wilderness will not let it go._

**Keep This Wolf**

_Chapter One—Bloody The Circle_

"Unspeakable Malfoy?"

Draco raised his head. He'd been studying his fingers in his lap for too long a time, he knew. The sharp tone scraping along the edge of Invisible Heldeson's bland voice told him so.

It was the only thing that would tell him so. Invisibles were the highest ranks among the Unspeakables, and Miriam Heldeson hadn't earned her rank by being highly emotional. She sat behind her desk with a face like still water and perfectly tailored grey robes that would only flow around her when she moved, because they wouldn't dare do anything else. The surface of her desk was free of anything except the discreet plate that announced her rank; personal mementoes were another weakness.

"Yes, Invisible," said Draco, and his voice was perfect. It didn't need to be, since he had already revealed his emotions, but he wanted it to be, and so it was.

"You can pay attention, then." Heldeson handed him the file across the desk. "This is the file on Tyr Thornsberry. Scion to Fenrir Greyback."

"Scion?" Draco raised his eyebrows as he took the file. Scions were werewolves bitten and then trained by a certain other werewolf, held so closely and so intensely that some of the mentor's personality and looks were stamped on them. Scions usually carried on a werewolf leader's "work" after they died, whether that was living wild in the woods, trying to integrate werewolves into wizarding society, or running about and biting normal people. Draco flipped the file open and scanned the first page, finding, as he'd expected, that Thornsberry had changed his first name not long after Greyback's bite.

"Yes," said Heldeson. "Greyback bit him sixteen years ago. We did not know until after Thornsberry was arrested for attempting to bite the Minister's son that he was the Scion."

Draco nodded. He knew Greyback had been killed in battle five years ago. That had been all over the newspapers, impossible to escape even if you _did _spend most of your time buried up to the nose in files that weren't supposed to exist in the Department with the cloudiest reputation in the Ministry.

"The attack on the Minister's son was revenge, then," Draco said.

Heldeson didn't respond. Getting that far was elementary reasoning, the kind expected of Unspeakable apprentices before their initiation.

Draco passed slowly through the file. Unlike some of his colleagues, he couldn't absorb all the information he needed to know with a glance. He had to read more thoroughly, for comprehension. He knew that Lucius had lamented that sometimes, would have liked a prodigy for a son.

But Draco had achieved what he was in spite of his name, for his mind and his memory and his familiarity with the Dark Arts and his ability to dance along the edge of temptation without succumbing to the lure of any kind of magic. Invisible Heldeson herself had been the one to appear in his office late one night and offer the training to him.

Draco laid the file down when he came to the last page. "I had thought that ordinary werewolves would want to distance themselves from Thornsberry," he murmured, and looked into the Invisible's eyes.

Heldeson would not display emotion, and Draco doubted even Professor Snape could have penetrated her Occlumency shields, but she lifted her head. "This is not an ordinary werewolf."

Only one person in the wizarding world—well, perhaps two now that Draco knew Thornsberry, due to be released from Azkaban in a month, was Greyback's Scion—fit that description. Draco was too well-bred to sigh, even without his training.

He looked one more time at the last page of the file, the only one that included a photograph of Thornsberry as he had looked before he was sent to Azkaban. He was a solid man, with corded muscles and a tattoo of a dark chain on one upper right shoulder. His hair was short, as was his beard, both blond with strong marks of grey. His eyes were the amber-yellow usually only acquired when the werewolf spent too much time in communion with his beast.

"I will go," said Draco, and he rose from the chair and bowed to Heldeson. One didn't need to, but he was high enough up in the ranks to make it a gesture of respect, and he wanted to let her know that he knew she had done all she could to aid him.

Draco turned and left the Invisible's office with long strides, letting the door fall gently shut behind him. His face would reveal nothing of what was going on behind it, as always, but his mind buzzed and burned.

Harry Potter was no ordinary werewolf. Draco Malfoy was no ordinary choice for a negotiator.

There was no reason for the Ministry to reach into the bowels of the Ministry and pluck out an Unspeakable whose talent lay with disarming and rebuilding Dark artifacts, rather than diplomacy, to change Harry Potter's declared intention of taking Thornsberry into his pack. No reason that would be apparent on the surface, at least. But if his father would be disappointed in some respects with what Draco had become, Draco hoped that he would _not _be disappointed in Draco's general level of intelligence. If there was no obvious reason, there would be many less obvious.

Draco had abandoned the game of politics his father played because he had found something more interesting, an opportunity more seductive. But he still remembered the board, the pieces, the movements.

And how not to be a piece himself.

* * *

Harry stood with his eyes closed, his arms folded and his crossed hands clutching his elbows. He didn't hold his wand, not yet. The person—the _werewolf—_across the circle from him did.

Harry had offered that particular advantage when June Norcom had agreed to duel with him, and settle their dispute that way. It was the only reason she had agreed at all, actually. Harry was so good at defensive and offensive magic both, now, that Norcom would normally have chosen open debate, or at least claws and teeth.

She would have the right to begin the duel with her wand in her hand, and five seconds when Harry would not strike at her.

_Fool_.

Harry heard the countdown to the beginning of the duel start outside the circle. He turned his head in that direction, unnecessary when his ears now brought him so many keener sounds, but he wanted to let them know he was listening. That he was right here, that he hadn't retreated into his head and abandoned them.

They reached the end of the count and shouted the beginning. Harry heard Norcom's breath draw in to begin the spell.

Harry opened his eyes, and _moved_.

He had promised not to strike at her; he had never promised to stand still. He heard Norcom's startled shout as Harry bounded off to the side, moving with werewolf speed and wizard flexibility, rushing almost straight up the side of the single tree included within the confines of the dueling ring. Harry hit the first branch, swung himself up, stood for a second with bark under his bare toes, and then launched himself from it straight at her.

Norcom cried a hasty curse. It went past Harry with a stinging sound. But it didn't actually sting, and that made all the difference.

Harry had once ridden Firebolts, and this wasn't harder. He hit the ground with his feet, propelled himself up with a twist, and hit Norcom with a Leg-Locker while she was still scrambling to focus on him and paralyze him with her own spell. Harry watched a bit indifferently as her knees locked and she fell over. Yes, perhaps she would be humiliated to be defeated by such a simple jinx. On the other hand, Harry didn't really want to damage any of his pack.

"Do you yield?" Harry asked, stepping forwards so he could put his wand against Norcom's throat.

She glared up at him. June Norcom had been turned when she was young enough that her beast had grown along with her, and she had bright brown eyes and silvery hair that marked her out as exotic to some wizards, but wouldn't reveal her as a werewolf to anyone who didn't already know.

"You bastard," she said. "You never intended to play fair."

"I kept the rules of the game," Harry said, and smiled at her. Norcom endured that gaze longer than he thought she would before looking away.

"Yes, fine, I yield," Norcom said. Before Harry could move away and lower his wand, she added, "But you might want to think about what it says that so many of the pack don't want to adopt Thornsberry!"

"Certainly I've thought about it," Harry said, cocking his head in the invitation for her to meet his gaze again. She didn't do that, and Harry shrugged and went on. "And I invited anyone who objected to meet me in the dueling circle."

"You—you must have known that you would win." Norcom scowled at the ground the way she wouldn't dare at him. "You were only choosing the kind of contest where you would always have the advantage!"

Harry waited some more, for a more real objection, but nothing happened. He sighed and glanced at the members of his pack who surrounded the circle. They flinched and turned their eyes away, heads bowed, shoulders hunched.

"Of course I chose the kind of contest that would lead me to the advantage," he said, and tried to keep his voice level. When he let his growl into his words, it always worked out differently than he thought it would. "Wouldn't any pack leader do the same? Or must I be alone among them in _trying _to lose, because of what I was before?"

Silence. But most of his pack had been wizards, and most of them had been changed in the aftermath of the second war with Voldemort, and most of them had some idea about his status as a "hero" that meant he should "play fair" while everyone else was allowed to do whatever they wanted.

"If I was that kind of weak leader, none of you would follow me," said Harry, and reached down, sliding his nails along Norcom's left forearm. She flinched, but Harry had cut her in a place that wouldn't impede her from doing daily tasks, and the wound would have healed by the next full moon. He lifted his hand, shaking it, and blood soared away from his fingernails to land on the ground and the edge of the circle.

The ritual requirements for the shedding of first blood invoked, Harry stalked out of the dueling circle and away from Norcom. That meant turning his back on her, but although he heard a little indrawing of breath as if she was tempted, she didn't strike at him. She knew the rules as well as he did.

Harry snarled to himself, and one of the older werewolves who had been about to come up to him stepped aside. Harry couldn't say that he regretted it. Sarah Woolwine always had some kind of "problem" she needed solved, namely her jealousy of people who were younger and faster than she was.

Harry flung himself along the woodland path he walked most frequently. The Forbidden Forest had its darker trails even for a werewolf, the ones that would challenge him, and this one was on the brink of a challenge. Harry walked it with his eyes and his head snapping back and forth, and things that had come up to the edge of the trees shrank back again.

He had become a werewolf when a woman who had come to the Ministry for her Wolfsbane too late on the night of the full moon had bitten him during her transformation. Harry hadn't liked it, but he'd dealt with it.

And that meant deciding what "rules" he was going to honor, and which ones he wasn't. When he had come to the Forbidden Forest, after a few failed attempts to live in the wizarding world and with other packs, he had immediately decided it didn't make sense that the current leader ruled. He was an old man, not even wise, but manipulated by others who had thought that his fading strength made him a convenient puppet. As long as he was in charge and could win brute challenges, the powers behind the throne didn't have to fight.

Harry had been told the rules of the pack by these people, but they were too greedy and too quick, and didn't check their lies with each other. And so he had learned that he could challenge the leader and remove him only on the night of a full moon, the day before a full moon, only after his first hunt with the pack, when the leader agreed to let him, when the pack held a vote, and half a dozen other ways.

The "rules" of a pack were a lot like the "rules" of the Ministry and the way it treated the Boy-Who-Lived: they could change. So Harry had chosen his own time, a battlefield that favored him—the leader, consumed with arrogance and wanting to prove that he didn't fear the Chosen One, had been easy to persuade—and an easy way to win. He didn't even have to kill the old leader, the way that werewolf challenges were supposedly to the death. He just had to win.

He did, and he became leader, and although he had never cared much for controlling others, it had become clear since he'd been a werewolf that either he did that or they controlled him. And Harry Potter had had _enough _of that.

He reached the end of the path, in a clearing of tall, strong oaks with black bark, and leaped easily from the ground and to the nearest branch. He pulled himself up to lie flat on it, and looked down into the trampled grass and earth of the clearing.

Harry didn't care for a lot of the changes that had happened to him since he became a werewolf, but he loved the ease of movement in his new body, the power and quicksilver sliding of his muscles.

He rested his cheek on the bark and looked down. If the pattern of the stars—and now he sounded like a bloody centaur—held true, then Paracelsus would return any time.

There was a slight quiver in the tree next to him. Harry rolled to the side, dropping fast, and heard something slam into the branch where he had been. He heard the soft curse, too, and rolled to his feet, grinning, tilting his head back so that he could regard the disappointed vampire clinging above him.

"Don't you ever get tired of that?" he asked.

"Your blood would be delicious," Paracelsus said, which Harry supposed was all the answer he was going to get. Paracelsus rearranged himself on the new branch where Harry had lain, and sniffed at the bark as if that would let him absorb some of Harry's blood and warmth through his nose.

Harry whuffled, a noise that never failed to annoy a lot of people, and leaned against the half-boulder behind him. "What news?"

"Where is my payment?" Paracelsus turned his head, and Harry caught a glimpse of his pale face. Paracelsus had lived long enough to resemble a giant insect, light and dry, rather than a mammal, but right now he was trying the effect of a pout.

"You had it already," Harry said. "Now, if you don't mind, the news. Or I'll go away and ask the centaurs to cast my fortune for the next month from the stars after all."

That made Paracelsus come to attention, as he knew it would. For whatever reason, Paracelsus hated centaurs, and not just because they made annoying, vague pronouncements, which Harry considered a good reason. He had tried to explain the genealogy of his hatred to Harry once, but Harry had hit him with acorns until he stopped.

"The Ministry is sending someone to negotiate with you," said Paracelsus. "To persuade you not to accept Thornsberry into your pack, I am certain. They would prefer that he remain isolated so that he will commit some other error and they can safely kill him."

Harry grimaced. He would be the last to admit that Thornsberry was an _appealing _packmate. Fenrir Greyback's get and Scion. Who would willingly spend time with _him_?

But Harry was a leader in a way that most werewolf packs didn't recognize anymore, and he was confident of his ability to stamp his own personality and traits on Thornsberry if he could live with him long enough. Hell, anyone he bit and trained would become his own Scion. Harry hadn't done it so far because he disliked the thought of spreading his infection, but he was capable of it.

And he wasn't going to offer that particular service to Thornsberry for Thornsberry's own sake. It was more for the sake of werewolves everywhere, to show that violent werewolf criminals could be reformed and that the Ministry didn't need to follow them around prosecuting them after they were out of Azkaban.

Harry's first attempts to live with people after he was bitten had failed because he'd still been trying to pretend he was a normal wizard. Now he knew better. He'd _never _been normal, and wouldn't have been without the effects of the bite, either. It was better for everyone when he stopped pretending, and wouldn't let the people around him get away with their comfortable delusions, either. Witches and wizards like Norcom thought it would be better if he did.

But they were wrong.

"Who are they sending to negotiate?" Harry asked. This was the real information he had sent Paracelsus to infiltrate the Ministry and discover. The general idea of what was coming, he could have got from the centaurs' circle-casting, or maybe even the ramblings of his own packmate who claimed to be a Seer, and did sometimes speak true prophecies.

"Draco Malfoy." Paracelsus hung upside-down by three limbs from the branch, watching Harry to see what would happen.

Harry hoped he liked hilarity. The laughter struck him so hard that he had to sit down. He bent over, whooping into the moss on the floor of the clearing, and was aware of the more-than-slightly-baffled silence from above.

But only three of Paracelsus's limbs were on the tree branch. There was one free, and Harry reached up and easily caught the rock he tossed, an egg-sized stone that could have broken his skull.

"Weak tactics," Harry noted, and crushed the rock with an easy motion of his hand. When he opened his fist, dust dribbled out.

"It wouldn't be if you were less strong," Paracelsus said, and stuck his tongue out at Harry, and leaped from the branch, vanishing into the Forest.

Harry remained where he was for a moment, watching the grass sway and smelling the scent of stagnant water from a pond not far away. It was possible that Malfoy was in on some kind of complicated plot to try to stop him from giving shelter to Thornsberry, and Harry would need to be more careful than ever around him.

But he also thought it unlikely. Malfoy was probably as surprised about this as he was, as uneasy.

Harry smiled as he stood. _Or more uneasy. Because Malfoy probably doesn't know yet why I'm so confident that I can accept Thornsberry into the pack, and probably doesn't want to be here._

If the Ministry was determined to set a negotiator on him, though, Harry could have had worse opponents. He had changed in the years since Hogwarts, and not merely from the bite. Malfoy would find him no easy challenge if he intended to take Harry down.

_And it might be interesting to see how _I _can challenge _him, Harry thought, leaping from the edge of the clearing and making his casual way through the Forest, back to his pack.


	2. Command the Pack

Thank you for all the reviews!

_Chapter Two—Command the Pack_

Draco stepped away from the Apparition point and spent a moment studying the outer edges of the Forbidden Forest. It had been some time since he had been here, and he'd been uncertain whether the Forest's physical appearance had been changed in any way by the werewolf pack living within it.

It didn't look like it. The Forest was still looming and dark and full of greenery that both tempted Draco—because he knew how many exotic Potions ingredients could be obtained by someone willing to take a little risk—and made him wary—because of the werewolves, but also because of other things. He made sure that he had one hand on his wand before he moved closer to the Forest, and that his steps were silent.

Invisible Heldeson hadn't needed to warn him against being seen by any of the villagers of Hogsmeade or the students wandering about. Draco moved swiftly and silently through the shadows of the trees, and in between them.

He did pause, once he was out of mortal sight, to touch a small crystal cube hanging from his belt. It began to glow when he tapped each of the four corners in a certain sequence, and Draco relaxed once he saw how strongly and steadily the light flooded through the crystal.

The Unspeakables had many artifacts in their possession: useless ones, mysterious ones, ones that wizards would give their hearts and souls for (and sometimes had, in the past), and Dark ones. Draco was an expert at taking those last, whenever an Auror raid or another of the Ministry's activities seized some from their former owners, and extracting the Dark magic to replace it with useful magic of some kind. Most Dark artifacts weren't actually that useful, no matter what their owners thought, unless one wanted to end up a combination of malformed, mutilated, decaying, dead, and insane.

This particular one would give him light that wouldn't fail, unlike the _Lumos _on a wand knocked out of a wizard's hand, and at the same time, flare when another being in the Forest sensed him and began to move towards him. It had taken Draco a long time to work out how to make the magic respond to the change in someone else's mind, instead of his own. He was, he thought, justifiably proud of it.

Now he glided down the paths that led towards the heart of the Forest, not looking around as small scurryings accompanied him. Those were all of lesser creatures moving _out _of his path. The only ones worth paying attention to were the ones that the crystal flared for.

The silence of the Forest, minus those little scurryings and some motion of the leaves in the breeze, closed around him with stunning swiftness once he was a short distance inside. Less than a mile away were wizards living a life as normal as any among their kind in England, but here, one would never know it. Draco breathed in the scent of dirt and darkness and wild things, and found himself smiling.

He wouldn't have chosen to come here on his own, and he wanted to find out the name of the Ministry official who had thought he would be "perfect" for this job. But he did miss the wind and the light when he was cooped up in the Department of Mysteries.

The darkness moved in front of him, at the same time as the crystal flared. Draco stopped, drawing in a breath of irritation that he didn't allow himself to release. The crystal's main weakness was that it wouldn't alert him in time if someone was near when they sensed him and thought about moving towards him. Draco had been relying too much on the way that it should warn him early. It was his own fault that he'd been caught off-guard with it.

He looked at the woman who was confronting him. She was powerfully built, but neither that nor the streaks of grey in her hair told him that she was a werewolf. It was more in the way she held herself, as if she would run back into the woods rather than out of them. It wasn't many normal wizards who would feel that the Forbidden Forest was the _safe _option.

Admittedly, the golden eyes and the snarl she flashed him a second later helped, too.

"Why are you here?" she demanded. "What is a _wizard _with a _wand _doing in our Forest?"

"Do the centaurs know that you claim the whole of it?" Draco murmured before he could stop himself, and for the pleasure of seeing her flush with confusion. He held back his smile. He might have already ruined the image of calm and collected diplomat he was trying to project, at least for one member of the pack, but he could avoid showing any more emotion. "I am Unspeakable Malfoy, from the Ministry, come to speak to Harry Potter."

The woman had been hunched, apparently still on the verge of fleeing, but when he said that, she threw back her shoulders and took a deep breath. "Then you'll convince him that he shouldn't let Thornsberry into the pack?" she whispered.

_So there are some werewolves who don't support Potter's mad notion to recruit Thornsberry? Interesting. _Draco didn't know much about the internal workings of werewolf packs, but he had had the impression that they closely followed their leader. And in the case of the leader being the Great Harry Potter, it seemed even more likely they would cling to his shadow. Internal opposition might make Draco's task easier.

"I certainly intend to," he said. No sense lying, when the pack would find out his mission soon enough. "Can you take me to him? And introduce yourself, so I don't find myself doing you a discourtesy by thinking of you only as a werewolf?"

The woman hesitated, staring suspiciously at him, but bland courtesy was a mask Draco had perfected the year after the war. Still slowly, she nodded, and said, "My name is Sarah Woolwine. And you're different from what I expected when I heard the Ministry was supposed to send us a representative. I thought it would be someone from the Collarers, not an Unspeakable."

Draco nearly asked what she meant by "Collarers," but then decided it was obvious. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures would hold a special place in werewolf minds. "Thank you, Sarah," he said gravely. "Can you take me to him?"

"I didn't give you permission to call me by my first name," she said, and her teeth flashed at him.

"Thank you, Miss Woolwine," Draco said, without turning a hair. He respected the abilities of werewolves, but he found it hard to take _implicit _danger all that seriously after the amount of serious, explicit things with teeth or Dark magic he had seen coming at him in his line of work. "Will you take me to him?"

Woolwine spent a few minutes considering him, as though to decide whether his non-apology was sufficiently groveling, and then sniffed and set off. She dodged down narrow paths as though she hoped that would lose him. Draco followed behind her perfectly well, though. Maybe she was quiet in wolf form, but she couldn't be completely silent as a human, and the trailing red robes she wore, still edged with gold, caught and flashed in the light of his crystal.

The Forest opened up as they went down the path, and Draco caught sight of others, well-used, leading off from the main one they were on. Now and then he could see clearings, with the edges of thatched roofs, and sometimes piled rocks that looked like the entrances to caves. Or there might be a fence or a Shield Charm humming around a vegetable garden, with the tops of carrots and potatoes visible. Draco almost smiled. He could imagine that the pests one would have to keep out of a garden in the Forbidden Forest would be formidable indeed.

The crystal flashed again and again, warning him of sentient beings looking at him and making their minds up about him, until Draco tapped his wand against it and commanded it to stop shining. It was getting to be nothing more than a distraction now.

The path spilled, finally, into a larger clearing than Draco had known existed in the Forest; he had thought the trees would always move to claim so much open space as soon as they could. The floor looked like it was made of tightly packed dirt, and no wonder, if as many people as were in at the moment were always walking over it and through it. Simple chairs were set up here and there, along with vine hammocks, and dozens of pairs of eyes turned to Draco as he stepped across the edge of the clearing.

In the center, or a little off from center, on a chair no bigger than the rest, sat Harry Potter. He stood up with he saw Draco, nodding familiarly to him. "Malfoy."

Draco stared. He knew that he was being silly, and neglecting his duties as a diplomat. He should have been able to move past the first few seconds of shock, bow smoothly but without making it seem as if Potter was the one in command here, and then go straight ahead into the next important piece of business: telling Potter why he was here.

But he found it impossible to keep his mouth from going dry, or his eyes from fastening on Potter's face and form.

Potter wasn't any taller than he had been, and it was probably pure werewolf magic rather than confidence, but he seemed to have settled into his skin far better than when Draco had last seen him, after the Death Eater trials. His muscles flowed more smoothly than they should; he came towards Draco with his hand extended, and even the hand seemed broader. The lines on his bloody _palm _seemed longer, more deeply carved. And his hair shimmered with a kind of dark aura echoed in the way that his green eyes flared as he locked them on Draco. Those were _definitely _darker. Draco had assumed amber would taint them, the way it did the eyes of most werewolves, but then, wolves could have green eyes as well. This had just made them more noticeable.

"Malfoy?"

Potter's voice was low, questioning, but Draco knew all about werewolves' enhanced senses, and assumed that the ones around them could probably hear the amusement in Potter's tone. Draco bristled and shook hands quickly, then spent a moment in that precise bow after all. He didn't do it because he wanted to show respect to Potter, exactly, but because he needed some time to recover from his own attack of emotion.

He had to remember who he was and why he was here. The Ministry had done this probably as some sort of revenge against Potter and some sort of attempt to weaken the Unspeakables. Draco's work kept him out of most Department politics, but the matter of the ownership of some artifacts could become a political issue. Draco had to go along with what they wanted for now, and show himself obedient and unthreatening and docile to their purposes, until he could figure it out, and strike back.

Falling over his own feet around Potter was _not _an element of that.

"Unspeakable Malfoy, please," Draco said at last, raising his head. "I struggled for the title, and I find that I don't like to relinquish it."

For a moment, Potter assessed him in a way that made Draco think he would refuse. Then he nodded, and said, "Fine. You can call me Potter or Harry, I don't care. I don't have any formal title," he added, turning around to face his pack again, but evidently catching the question in Draco's eyes.

Draco watched the way the werewolves straightened to attention or sucked in their stomachs as Potter's eyes swept across them, and wanted to snort. _Of course. You're just innocent of all power and all ambitions, aren't you?_

Potter glanced back at him with a spark in his eyes that made Draco tighten his Occlumency shields immediately. No one had said that Harry Potter had become good at Legilimency—he had been terrible, the last time Draco knew anything about it—but on the other hand, no one had talked about the sheer _power _that had settled into his skin, either.

"Coming?" Potter asked calmly.

"Did you want to meet with me immediately?" Draco knew how to make his voice neutral, even after a shock like this. It had taken him a few minutes longer than it should have, and he hoped that information didn't make its way back to Invisible Heldeson, who was more likely to demote him if it did. "Or did you want me to introduce myself to the pack and then come back tomorrow?"

"I hadn't thought you would be leaving," said Potter, with a long, languorous blink. "Not until tomorrow and after the feast we plan to throw you in welcome, anyway. You have quarters here that you can use. They're guest quarters."

Draco crossed the distance between him and Potter with business-like strides. Potter just looked at him, watching him come. Those eyes made Draco wonder if Potter had got used to assessing threats in a new way since he'd become a werewolf.

_Of course he has. I need to stop speculating and deal with what's in front of me._

"I would be glad to be treated as a guest," Draco said, and let his voice lilt up with the question.

Potter smiled at him. The effect of that smile was something no one had described, either. Luckily, Draco knew how to resist facial expressions better than he did the aura of power around Potter. His father had used them as manipulation all the time, and most of the Unspeakables weren't above during the same thing. "Of course you will be. It's not your fault that you're here, is it? You didn't make the decision."

"I shouldn't be surprised that you have spies inside the Ministry," said Draco, shaking his head, although he did wonder who Potter had managed to sneak into the Department of Mysteries, of all places.

Potter snorted, and his eyes shone. "Keep thinking that, if that's what you want to, Malfoy." And he swept ahead, leaving Draco to stare at his back for a second before he caught up.

"I didn't realize how much of the Forest you've taken over," Draco said, as they reached the edge of the clearing and werewolves parted around them like a stream around a rock. Now he could the see the side of one of those little cottages. That was presumably the guest quarters Potter had been talking about. "Your pack is larger than I thought it was. Are you sure that you can afford to support another one?"

"No talking about business just yet, Malfoy." Potter pointed around the trunk of a large tree. "You'll find the guest quarters there. Not big, but it has a bed, a writing desk with parchment and ink in the drawers, candles, a spell-protected toilet, and a warded trunk for any belongings you care to put down." He studied Draco a minute, eyes running up and down his body in a way that made Draco want to twitch. "You didn't bring much."

"I wasn't planning on an extended stay," Draco said. "And why should business wait, Potter? You know what I've come to discuss, but I don't know your arguments in favor of taking Thornsberry into your pack yet. Surely we should speak?"

"_Pleasure _comes before business, of course," said Potter, and winked at Draco—bloody _winked _at him!—while nodding again at the house. "Take the chance to refresh yourself; there's some water in there, too. Or write an owl to your employers and let them know you've arrived safely, if you want. I've got to go oversee the preparations for the feast." Then he strutted off, accompanied by an escort of werewolves.

Draco stared after Potter for a second. Then he remembered who might be watching, snapped his head straight up, and stalked into the house instead. It was as Potter had indicated, except that there were more blankets on the bed and more luxuries altogether than Draco had thought there would be.

He sat down, cast some spells that would prevent anyone from spying into the house or eavesdropping while he was there, and then began, very carefully, to consider which of his actions or gestures might have been responsible for weakening him so much in Potter's eyes.

* * *

Harry hid his smile as he went to talk with Woolwine and some of the other wolves who thought that Malfoy being here meant he should immediately give up. And then he had the feast to arrange, of course.

He had expected Malfoy to be pompous and angry and cold, which he still was. But he hadn't expected the way that he moved, or the start he visibly gave when he saw Harry for the first time, or the magic that crackled around him and reached out to Harry's own when they shook hands—although Harry thought Malfoy didn't feel that as much. And he hadn't realized that Malfoy evidently lacked some information on werewolf noses: that they could smell most emotions.

This was going to be hard and complicated, and the Ministry was interfering in what didn't concern them again. Thornsberry had served his sentence. He ought to be left alone once he was out, and if Harry's pack wanted to take him in, that was Harry's business.

But this was also going to be _fun_.


	3. Eat the Feast

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Three—Eat the Feast_

Draco arranged the wards on his trunk once more and gave it a dubious look. He had to admit that he wasn't entirely sure he should trust in the strength of wards provided by his "hosts." Presumably, if they wanted to bypass them and enter the trunk, then they could.

Which meant the only sensitive things he carried, his wand and the artifacts that he had changed and adapted for the Unspeakables, would stay on his person. But he had of course arranged a few papers in the trunk that looked interesting but weren't really, just to see what Potter would do.

It would be interesting to see—although perhaps hard to tell if the wards on the trunk were breached.

Draco turned to one of the luxuries Potter hadn't mentioned the house containing, perhaps because he assumed that Draco would treat it as a matter of course. The mirror told Draco his hair was smooth and flat, and added, with an envious little sigh that made Draco curl his lip, that his lovers didn't know how lucky they were.

"When I have a lover, I'll be sure to tell them that," Draco said, and stared into the mirror for one more moment. No, he could see no sign of the weakness that would have made Potter treat him so casually. It must have been in his expression and the way he moved only.

Shaking his head, he turned up the cuffs on his Unspeakable robes and cast the spell that would line them and the hems with decorative gilt embroidery. It was the only concession he intended to make to this feast that Potter had been talking about. And had the rest of the pack known they were giving it? From some of the stares that they'd given Potter's back, Draco wondered.

There was one potential source of friction, one way to undermine Potter's authority. It seemed that some of his pack, like Woolwine, were less than happy with all of his decisions. Woolwine at least struck Draco as someone who would like to lead her own pack and make her own decisions. If Draco could make Potter pay too much attention to the werewolves he already had under his command to worry about Thornsberry, that would serve the Ministry's purposes, though in an indirect way.

But then, Unspeakables rarely worked any other way.

Draco cast one final charm to repel mud and fallen leaves from the bottom of his robes, and then stepped out the door and walked calmly in the direction of the feast. There was no doubting what direction that was, not when lights shone through the trees and someone had already lifted their voice in a rather rude drinking song.

Draco half-smiled. Either Potter enjoyed that kind of merriment, in which case Draco could think of other ways to undermine him, or they were singing it against Potter's wishes, which was an excellent sign of rebellion.

"Unspeakable Malfoy."

At least Potter had sent someone who knew how to be courteous, and was noisy enough that Draco didn't bolt in surprise when he stepped out of the shadows. He looked like he was an older werewolf, at least given the grizzle on his chin and the way his orange eyes had sunken back into his head. He bowed his head and murmured something that Draco suspected were instructions for following him. It would be strange if they were anything _else_, really.

He dodged around trees, past gardens, and past what looked like a pit of seeping mud. Draco wasn't sure that he wanted to know what the werewolves had been doing there. Some of them, he saw, had left muddy footprints behind them. Perhaps the gilt he had conjured onto the edges of his robes made him overdressed for the feast.

Draco raised his eyebrows a little at his own thought. He didn't need to think that way. What _mattered _was meeting his own standards, and he would do that even if no one else in the pack did.

Then the trees and shadows that still blocked the way seemed to fall off abruptly, and Draco stepped back into the big clearing. This time, large tables and benches, reminiscent of the House tables at Hogwarts, had been pushed together in the center to replace the chairs and hammocks. Draco studied the tables' legs and thought he knew how much of the dirt in the clearing had been packed and smoothed down.

Werewolves sprawled on the benches, toasting each other and eating from huge plates of nearly raw meat and what looked like mountains of honeycakes. Among them moved centaurs, and a few flickering creatures that Draco made sure to watch only from the corner of his eye. They looked like dryads, and while the artifacts he carried might make Draco safe from their charms, he wasn't sure enough about that to be all that _happy _looking at them.

"Welcome, Draco!"

Draco started again, but this time he thought he had reason. The thought that there was someone here who he would know well enough to let them address him by his first name…

Then he realized that there was no one here he knew that well, but simply someone who had claimed the privilege. Potter came bounding through the light of the bonfires that flickered in the center of the clearing, and the swaying lanterns hung from ribbons that spanned the branches of the trees.

"Glad you came!" Potter chirped, and shoved the large wooden goblet he was carrying into Draco's hand. It sloshed, and smelled worse than Firewhisky. Draco tried to press it back, but Potter had whirled away, and it was hold it or drop it. Draco _knew _he would have looked sillier dropping it, and he ducked his head and hung on as best he could. "Come! What would you like to eat? Or would you prefer dancing? I know some people don't dance after they eat, but some people prefer it."

"I didn't intend to dance at all," said Draco, rattled but holding it back. No, he hadn't thought that this feast would include dancing. If anything, it looked like the bold parties he had read about some Old Norse wizards throwing in the far distant past, not the elegant galas that Draco sometimes attended at the Ministry. "Why would I? I don't know anyone here who could partner me."

The way that Potter smiled at him a moment later made him rethink having said that.

"Really?" Potter was looking over Draco's shoulder at someone behind him, but Draco refused to turn and see who it was. He didn't think anyone would dare try to kill him in the middle of this celebration, and that was the only threat worth paying attention to. "You don't think I could give you a challenge?" And he turned back and used those devastating eyes on Draco to their best effect.

Draco's pulse was high and harsh in his throat. Yes, he was regretting having said that. But since he _had _said it, the least he could do now was be gracious about it.

"I don't know you well enough to dance with you," Draco said. He thought it a smooth recovery. The spark in Potter's eyes said he disagreed, but Draco was going on, even more smoothly, slick as oil. "Besides, you and I might have to have some very unpleasant discussions about Thornsberry soon. It wouldn't be wise to taint those discussions with anything from this."

"Taint?" breathed Potter. His hand came to rest on Draco's forearm, and squeezed. His smile was deep and dazzling, and so much like a smirk that Draco wondered who had taught him that. Gryffindors didn't smirk. _Potter _didn't smirk. "An interesting word. Do you think I'm incapable of keeping business and pleasure separate?"

Draco looked around the feast.

Potter laughed aloud, and drew still more eyes and more attention. Draco had known he would be the center of observation in the middle of a werewolf pack, though, the one wizard here who wasn't already part of them, and put up with that easily enough.

The curl of Potter's arm around his waist a moment later was something he jumped away from. But Potter just readjusted his stance and smiled at him.

"I don't want to make an enemy of the Ministry," he murmured to Draco. "And I don't want to make an enemy of you."

"Embarrassing me will," Draco warned him. He had already shown so much of himself that he thought saying this was the best way to use the emotions as leverage.

"And that's the last thing I wish to do, either." Potter's arm and smile both became crooked at the same moment. "Won't you partner me? I promise that I've learned better steps than I knew when you saw me dancing at the Yule Ball."

That had been the last thing Draco had thought Potter would bring up. But he knew now, now that he thought about it, that that was the way Potter worked. He was comfortable in his skin, settled into his power. Stinging Draco with reminders of the past that didn't sting him was one way to win this contest.

Draco didn't intend to lose, and now Potter had physically left him no way to back out. He half-inclined his head and said, "I was taught to lead on the dance floor. May I?"

"Oh, yes, why not?" Potter shrugged a little as he led Draco towards the center of the clearing, where the benches were shoved back and the dirt was flattest. Dozens of eyes watched them go. That sensation, at least, was familiar to Draco from years ago, and still sometimes from the meetings that the Unspeakables held to demonstrate the uses of some of their artifacts. "My training wasn't that formal."

_That could become a very annoying weapon, if I let it, _Draco thought, as he turned opposite Potter and reached out to gather his hands. _That ability to turn every situation to his advantage and make sure he's the comfortable one._

But Draco _didn't _intend to let Potter take over the lead that way, and he made his case when he heard the music start. It was an old wizarding tune, one so old that it had hundreds of different variations as to the lyrics. A dryad was playing it by passing what looked like one long, twiggy finger over her leaf-stricken hair, her head bowed.

Draco knew how to dance to that tune, no one better; it was the first one his mother had used to teach him, under the name of "The Three Cauldrons." Draco turned to the left, now, and brought Potter with him to the right, and the dance began.

There were gliding steps, leaping steps, steps where they had to turn under each other's arms. Draco managed them all, and almost managed to forget his audience, although he could still sense the eyes watching him over the edges of mugs.

His partner was the one who occupied his attention.

Potter leaped easily over roots, smiled at Draco whenever they caught each other's eyes, and twisted and turned as though he didn't mind at all having an Unspeakable at his back. It was true that he didn't know what some of the artifacts Draco carried could do, but that would have made Draco more cautious, not less.

Potter just danced as if he wanted to…have fun.

Draco nearly stumbled when he realized that. Potter paused in the middle of a step that would whirl them around each other, his eyes curious.

"A twinge in my ankle," Draco lied, not letting his words override the music, and then he began to dance again, pulling Potter into it. Potter relaxed and went back to the dance with a lightened expression.

Draco's mind was racing faster than their feet were. _Did he just start this debate over Thornsberry to have fun? Is his definition of having fun bedeviling the Ministry?_

But that made it all the stranger that he'd want to annoy the Ministry by dancing with Draco. He ought to know that the Ministry wouldn't care about that at all, whatever the inconvenience to Draco himself, and that Draco wasn't the whole Ministry in his own person, only his mission and the Unspeakables.

Draco sighed soundlessly as they passed over one more pair of roots and ended up dancing out into the middle of the clearing, whirling around each other a final time as the music came to a close. It seemed he had passed quickly through thinking Potter ignorant to assuming he must be possessed of _all _unusual knowledge. There was no reason for him to know how much Draco resented having this mission, or that it had been fobbed off on him.

"Thank you for the dance," Potter said, bowing to him, the precise distance that one pure-blood partner on the floor was supposed to bow to another. Draco eyed him. Potter flashed him another smile that ignored the implicit challenge and extended his arm, braced and steady. "Shall we go to the feast? Feeding you is the least I can do after the exercise I made you take."

_I don't know if _he _knows what he's doing from one moment to the next, _Draco thought irritably, and took Potter's arm.

* * *

Malfoy ate as though he had some sort of stomach-wasting disease.

Harry, his plate full of venison and fresh carrots and the stew that Marion Jackson made well when something woke her up from her sunlight naps, swallowed his latest bite and leaned over to pour more wine into Malfoy's goblet. Malfoy glanced flatly at him. He hadn't made much of an inroad on the wine, and Harry couldn't trickle in more than a few drops before he had to stop in case the goblet overflowed.

"Was that _really _necessary?" Malfoy murmured, and reached for the goblet, lifting it smoothly, to down a single swallow. Harry watched his throat work. It was a handsome throat.

"I wanted to do it," Harry said, and settled back on his side of the bench. So far, he had seen one way Malfoy had changed, and that was to grow more stiff and formal. He still smelled of many emotions, like the shock that had made him stumble in the middle of the dance, but he was closing his reactions off since his surprise on arriving in the pack's midst and finding Harry different than he'd obviously expected. The motions of his hands were short, precise. He didn't turn his body towards a sound, only his eyes. He didn't retreat from the werewolves that flowed around him, but seemed resigned. "And I think that you should stop treating us as though we're about to kill you. Don't you realize that that's one of the things that might _make _us strike at you?"

"You are the one who would have to make that decision for the pack, I think," said Malfoy, and patted at his lips with a napkin, although he hadn't got any grease on them that Harry'd seen, because he wasn't _eating _anything. "And you seem too interested in me to order them to attack."

Harry blinked, then smiled slowly. It was true that one of the reasons he had invited Malfoy to dance was to see what he would do, and another because he wanted to see how well he moved in case _Malfoy _took it into his head to attack, but another reason was simply because he enjoyed the sight of him in motion. "You understand that interest?"

Malfoy's scent spiked and prickled, and he shook his head. "I know that you want Thornsberry in your pack," he said, lowering his voice, likely in case the centaurs that tromped by, in the midst of a deep discussion about Saturn, overheard him. "But I still don't really understand _why_. I was hoping you would explain more than you have."

"Business waits for tomorrow," Harry said, and leaned back into his place. He could feel the currents of the pack, lazily eddying into place, focusing on him. Someone would demand something of him soon, probably before he went to bed tonight. "This feast is in celebration of your arrival here. I wish you could see it as a good thing, too."

"Frankly?" Malfoy stirred the wine in his goblet and took one more drink. "I would rather be back in my office working on an artifact that's likely to kill me."

Harry snarled a laugh. Malfoy focused on his mouth while he did it, though Harry couldn't be sure if that was real interest or just wariness of his teeth. "I thought you would say that you want to be sleeping in your own bed. Here are a bunch of _werewolves _who could kill you. Doesn't that matter? What's the difference between them and your precious artifact?"

That was one problem Malfoy was having, at least, in Harry's opinion. He had forgotten how to have any bloody _fun_.

Malfoy stared at him, then shook his head. "You honestly don't see the difference?"

"Not much," Harry had to admit, with a shrug.

Malfoy sighed, loudly enough that he stirred some of the hairs on Harry's jaw. "The artifact wouldn't do it intentionally."

Harry leaned in before he could stop himself, and put his hand on Malfoy's wrist. Malfoy started and looked at him. He hadn't forgotten how to move gracefully, at least, and the way his pulse sped up under Harry's touch was rather intriguing.

"I promise that no one here is going to harm you," Harry said. "Unless you do something to harm one of them first, and even then, I would insist on talking it out and not letting them just attack you. I don't want to cause an incident with the Ministry. I don't want to damage the chances of the Ministry eventually agreeing with me that Thornsberry can stay here and cause no harm, although it might take them a while to see that. And most of all, I don't want to hurt _you_."

"Why not?"

Harry fell back in his chair. So that was the difference, the real one, the secret, greatest difference, the one behind the way that Malfoy had stared at people, had shifted his weight, had eaten or not eaten, stirred or not stirred, all evening. He didn't think that anyone in the pack held his life at any value. Perhaps he held it at only conditional value himself, thinking that he was only worth anything as long as he could serve the Ministry or work on his artifacts.

"Because I want you alive," Harry whispered to him, and leaned in again.

Malfoy's eyes shone slightly, but not with emotion, as much as with the light of the fires. His lips parted a little. The air between them was warm and full of smells: blood, grease, salt, hormones.

Harry tore himself away. He was getting uncomfortably intimate here, and he didn't want some of the pack to draw the conclusions they would, if he remained close to Malfoy.

"Think about it," he told Malfoy. "Think about when you became so paranoid that you assumed everyone you went to treat with was an enemy out to kill you."

And he left the table, and went to ask Sarah Woolwine to dance. She was fussing at the moment, but she was graceful, and would partner him well.

If not as well as Malfoy.

_Poor Malfoy. Does he honestly not think all that much of himself?_

* * *

Draco lifted his goblet and swallowed some more wine. It was starting to make the fires and the people around him swim, not a good thing, but he needed a barrier between himself and what Potter seemed to have been suggesting just then.

He didn't even have words for what Potter had been suggesting, but he knew being drunk was less dangerous than listening to it.


	4. Bargain Them Down

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Four-Bargain Them Down_

"So, why did the Ministry _really _send you here?"

Draco turned around, raising his eyebrows. A member of the pack he didn't recognize had landed on the bench next to him. His hair was white, his yellow eyes so bright that Draco thought he would see them reflecting out of the dark forest even in human form. He had heavy, curved nails on his hands, too, and the way he smiled seemed to reveal too many teeth. Draco nodded to himself without changing his pleasant expression. Here was someone who had spent too much time too close to the animal, like Fenrir Greyback.

"I was sent to negotiate with your pack leader and try to persuade him not to adopt Tyr Thornsberry," Draco said. It was even close to the truth.

The man snorted and leaned back on the heels of his hands, not taking his eyes from Draco's face. "What are they, fools? They should have known that you don't negotiate with someone like Harry Potter."

Draco said nothing, only sipped a little more of his drink and waited with an open expression for whatever the man wanted to tell him.

"You have to conquer him," said the man, and his eyes went to Potter, who was now whirling around the dance floor with the woman who had greeted Draco in the woods. "He doesn't respect anything else."

"Not even the rules and traditions of the packs?" Draco murmured. In truth, he had known that already. It was evident in the way Woolwine had talked about Potter. And Draco had certainly never heard of any other werewolf pack leader throwing a welcoming feast for someone who had been sent with such a blatantly oppositional mission, or acting as though he had been friends with one of his former enemies for years.

"Especially not them." The man leaned forwards. "I'm someone who tried to befriend him when he first came here, after failing to live in several other packs. And you see how he thanks me."

"I don't, actually," Draco said. "Given that I haven't seen you and him interact at all, and you haven't even told me your name."

The man blinked as if surprised to find that Draco had a backbone, then showed his teeth in what was probably a friendly grin and held out his hand. Draco took it, careful to avoid a scratch from his nails. "I'm Frederick Ninian. Can't blame you for not knowing me. I'm not famous outside the packs. Unlike _some _people." Again his eyes went to Potter, and his nostrils widened and flared.

_And so an opportunity to undermine Potter marches right up to me and lands itself in my lap. _Not that Draco simply intended to launch himself into planning conspiracy with Ninian. He wasn't an Unspeakable, and distrustful of others' motives, for nothing. Ninian wouldn't just walk up to someone who could hurt him and start talking like this. He either thought Draco was stupid, or his hatred overpowered his good sense. If it was the latter, he might make an unsteady ally.

"It must be hard to have someone simply walk into your pack and think that he can command it because of his fame," murmured Draco, in a tone that he could describe as flat later, in case one of Potter's loyalists overheard him. He was already thinking much faster than his voice implied, though. He could convince Potter to abandon his plan to adopt Thornsberry, or he might simply replace him with another pack leader, one more responsive to the Ministry's plan to keep Thornsberry a loner.

"It _is_." Ninian leaned insistently forwards. "And what does he do, but defeat the old leader in a challenge that wasn't even sanctioned by our ancient traditions? He thinks he can do anything he wants, and he does it, as neat as you please." He sneered, and his hands tightened on the bench, making it creak.

Draco sighed a little. "Well, one thing doesn't make much sense to me. If you dislike him and the majority of the pack dislikes him, why not just overthrow him? You know the traditions, and he doesn't. It should be easy to defeat him."

Ninian stared at him. "This is the Chosen One! You don't just walk up and duel him and expect that you're going to get away unscathed."

Draco looked down into his goblet, to hide his eyes, in case some of his contempt was escaping him. "I thought werewolves engaged in single combat with hands and teeth," he said quietly. "Not formal duels. Forgive my ignorance."

Ninian snarled softly, and turned to watch Potter and Woolwine again. "_He _always sets it up so that it's a formal duel to first blood. He says it's because he doesn't want to kill members of his own pack, but it's clear that he just uses the situation to his advantage. The pack leader can pick and choose like that. But he's not the right pack leader for us." His eyes glittered, and Draco thought he spied some of the hairs on the old werewolf's neck rising.

Draco held back another sigh. Ninian had already contradicted himself. If the pack leader could pick how challenges for leadership went, then that suggested Potter had either won under the rules against their old leader, or the old leader had been stupid enough to pick a situation that _didn't _favor him. Either way, Ninian shouldn't resent Potter so much.

But it wasn't Draco's place to explore the internal contradictions of the werewolf pack's approach to Potter. It was his place to exploit them. "Would you be willing to help the Ministry, then? I could put in a good word for your pack with them afterwards, as long as you didn't adopt Thornsberry."

Ninian turned to him with that fluid quickness Draco found almost more disconcerting than the glow in a werewolf's eyes. "Why would you do that? The Ministry sent you here to negotiate with Potter."

Draco smiled peacefully at him. "No. The Ministry sent me here to solve a problem." He left the obvious conclusion to hang unspoken in the air, and after a second, Ninian grinned and nodded, a swift bob of his head.

Of course, he then had to make it spoken. "And if the problem is solved, the Ministry doesn't care how." Ninian stared hungrily at where Potter circled. "I don't want to be leader myself. Too much work. But I know the right person to put in Potter's place, so we can start talking in more detail about what it's going to take to replace him."

"I'm sure you know best how it's to be done," Draco said, holding back a yawn of boredom this time. Good God, sparring with Potter, as confusing as it was, could at least entertain him better than these juvenile conspiracies.

But he wasn't here to be entertained, either. He was here to explore different methods of solving the problem that Potter represented. Frankly, he should be glad to have so simple a method saunter up to him. And while Ninian had a certain measure of intelligence, it seemed that it _would _be that simple. Ninian was smart enough to seize the first chance that came along; that didn't mean he would be graceful about it.

"The Ministry will protect us and let us keep living here?" Ninian turned his head to stare sidelong at Draco. "There were rumors that they were going to try and pull us out of the Forest to protect Hogwarts's students."

_Another problem with me being appointed by someone other than the Unspeakables to negotiate, _Draco realized. But what the Ministry did after he was gone and the immediate problem resolved was no more his business than who became leader of the pack after Potter's fall. He only nodded and said, "I can put in a good word for you. After all, why would the Ministry want to harm a friendly pack?"

"Why indeed," mused Ninian, and his hands twitched a little. He looked back at where Potter was dancing with Woolwine, and then smiled. "I think we can prove ourselves friendly to the Ministry in more than one way. They've been trying to get rid of Potter for years, haven't they?"

"Have they?" Draco asked before he thought, and saw the suspicious way Ninian's eyes turned to him. He hadn't meant to phrase it exactly like that, as if it was a revelation. He was supposed to be the politics expert here, after all.

But it _had _been a bloody revelation, and one he didn't much like. _If I've missed something essential about the way the Ministry deals with Potter because I spend all my time down in the Department of Mysteries rebuilding artifacts..._

He dismissed that a minute later. That was the career he had chosen, and for more reasons than one. A Malfoy paying too much attention to politics didn't mean the same thing after the war as it had before. It was probably a good thing that he'd distanced himself from all but a few old friends and applied himself to his job.

At least, good when it came to most of the people in the real world, the one of the Ministry, the people he had to convince. Ninian was watching Draco with cautious eyes now, as if he assumed that Draco would run over right away and warn Potter.

Draco shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "I didn't know that they were still pursuing such open tactics," he said. "I thought they'd turned to more subtle ones. The way I have."

Ninian examined him minutely for a second, then huffed and relaxed. "Yes, perhaps. But you smelled as though this was a surprise."

_I bloody smelled, _Draco thought. Suddenly, some of Potter's reactions to him made a lot of sense. He would have been able to sniff out, literally, the things Draco was trying to hide, his confusion and scorn.

He hadn't said a word, but that meant not a word to Draco, not to the rest of his pack. Draco closed his hand around one of the artifacts that hung in a pouch from his belt, a small bracelet of several crystal spheres joined together, and only barely refrained from squeezing too hard. He had brought this one mostly as personal defense, not anticipating another use for it, but the more he envisioned Potter smirking and laughing to himself and not telling Draco the very simple secret, the more he wanted to use it.

"Unspeakable Malfoy?" Ninian brought him out of his trance. "Are you all right? You've been glaring at our precious leader, and that'll make your animosity obvious."

Draco smiled and turned his head. If he couldn't hide his emotions, he would have to find other reasons for them, and luckily, he had the reason for this one already in place. "I used to be Potter's rival in school. Another strange reason for the Ministry to choose me." _Unless they have the plans that you think they do._

Ninian let the unspoken remain unspoken this time, luckily. He nodded and chuckled, and said, "Fine. I can count on your willing participation?"

"I have no desire to lead a werewolf pack," Draco said, his fingers rolling the crystal beads against the cloth of the pouch they hung inside. "But a great desire to get even with Potter."

_And I'll make sure that I don't play into his hands. Strange magic or not._

* * *

"You never play by the rules," Woolwine snarled softly to Harry as they whirled through the last steps of a formal dance. Woolwine maintained a false, pretty smile, but anyone who was close enough could see through it, or smell the anger musking off her body. Harry wondered why she bothered with the smile. "Even in situations where you really _should_."

"What makes the situation with Malfoy so different from the other ones where I've shown my disregard for the rules?" Harry turned her in one more circle, and stopped dancing with a bow to her. She had to do the same-not because anyone compelled her to, but because those were the social rules she so valued. "I know what I can do and what I can't do, and I've always got results."

Woolwine glared at him some more, then shook her head. "You don't recognize in Malfoy the Ministry's latest attempt to destroy us?"

Harry shrugged. He had always known that the Ministry wasn't happy with a large werewolf pack settled in the Forbidden Forest, but they hadn't cared enough to do anything about it until he became the leader. Then suddenly, it was a focus of efforts from "concerned citizens" to persuade the Ministry to move them out or outlaw werewolves living so near humans.

"I have to admit, I don't know why they would have sent him in the guise of a negotiator if their goal is just to destroy us," Harry said.

Woolwine glared some more at him, then stalked off. Harry let her go. She was someone he had to keep up the pretense of good relationships with, but that _was _one refreshing side to the rules in a werewolf pack: if someone got upset enough, they had to either retreat or challenge him. And Harry was going to win any physical or magical challenge they marshaled against him, and individually they didn't have the wit to make an effective social one.

They could have got together and challenged him that way, but they all wanted to be the puppets behind the new leader. They couldn't agree.

As Harry stepped off the dance floor, he glanced around. There was a flash of white hair from beside Malfoy. Harry smiled. He was only surprised that it had taken Ninian this long to find Malfoy.

Ninian's glare at him wasn't unexpected. He had been one of the most persistent werewolves behind the old leader, too physically infirm from ancient wounds to fight himself, but content in his position. He didn't like it that Harry barely listened to him.

Harry paused when he saw Malfoy's expression, though. _I thought he was too smart to listen to Ninian's rumor-mongering._

Which left the possibility that he had some reason of his own for being against Harry.

Harry sighed. This meant more complications than he had looked for, and he would probably have to devote some attention and emotions to Malfoy that he had counted on being able to divert to his pack and Thornsberry instead.

But he could feel a smile working its way across his face even as he considered that. Since when had complications ever deterred him? Defeating Voldemort by taking down his Horcuxes had been pretty damn complicated, but he had managed it. Sure, other people had helped him and he'd been lucky, but if his time as the leader of a werewolf pack had taught him anything, it was that he should take advantage of any help people and luck could offer. He would use it more effectively than if he stood around saying that he wasn't the Chosen One and he couldn't do anything.

He strode towards the table where Ninian and Malfoy sat. Ninian sat up when he saw him, and assumed a pious expression. Harry didn't roll his eyes, but not because of social rules. He just wasn't stupid enough to let Ninian on to what he suspected.

Malfoy didn't move, but this close, Harry could pick up on the stink of anger, and see the way his hand stayed on a pouch at his belt, rolling and fondling something. Harry thought it was a string of magical beads.

"If you brought a gift for me," Harry said, nodding to the pouch on Malfoy's belt, "you shouldn't have. I don't require that kind of thing from wizards who negotiate with me."

Malfoy gave Harry a smile that, for the first time all evening, was like the smiles Harry used to get from him. Harry smiled back. He couldn't help it. Malfoy might think that Harry was mocking him with the return smile, but he would have to think that and deal with it.

"But what about from werewolves?" Malfoy whispered. "Or centaurs? Or dryads?" He looked around the feast with a flicker of his eyes. "You seem to have gathered quite the group of magical creatures here. How would the Ministry react to that? Do they even know? Or are they waiting to be informed by someone who could come here and convince them?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see that Ninian had scrambled prudently away. He couldn't blame him. Injecting himself into the contest that was going on between Harry and Malfoy, a contest years old, wasn't a smart idea.

"They know what they need to know," Harry said, because he knew that the combination of the mysterious answer and the flat tone would infuriate Malfoy.

"_Do _they?" Malfoy was on his feet, moving around the bench. His legs were long and graceful, his hands likewise. "What would happen if someone told them more?"

His face was almost pink, his hand, still on the pouch on his belt, shaking. Harry wasn't surprised. Dryad wine was notorious for loosening the tight holds that someone kept on their emotions, making the feelings sweep through you as freely as the winds in a forest. And no one could keep as tight a rein on themselves as Malfoy had been for years, Harry thought, without sometimes making their hearts explode.

"I don't know," Harry said. "I suppose you could tell them, and we'd both find out." He held out a hand. "But in the meantime, I'll take the gift you're so eager to give me."

Malfoy gave a shaky laugh and tore the pouch open. "Take it and _welcome_," he said, and dragged out the glittering ring of crystal beads.

Harry only had time to see that much, that it was made of the small, round crystal balls, before they got flung at his head. They shimmered with a savage magic.

_Well, my magic is savage, too, _Harry thought, and calmly put up his hand to catch them.


	5. Savage the Magic

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_Chapter Five—Savage the Magic_

The magic that rang through Harry when he caught those crystal beads and clasped them in his palm was certainly wild enough to qualify as savage. He found himself bending at the waist, gasping with the effort of containing it.

It wanted to attack his mind; he knew that as soon as he spoke to it in the depths of his being. It wanted to fill his senses with darkness and then madness. It wanted to make him gallop in different directions, laughing and singing and waving his arms. It would bewilder him, ensnare him, and drag him down. It could make any human fall out of touch with reality in a dozen different ways, no longer able to trust eyes or ears or sense of touch.

Any _human_.

And it did nothing to the sense of smell.

Harry straightened up, gasping again. He felt something melting down the center of his palm, and opened his hand to see what it was. One of the crystal beads was gone from the bracelet, dissolved like ice in front of a fire; the others had shifted together to replace it. Harry nodded to himself and flung the bracelet back in Malfoy's direction.

Malfoy caught it without flinching away from it. His eyes, motionless and locked, stayed on Harry's face. Harry shrugged at him. "A good trap," he said, and heard his voice come out hoarse. Well, fine. That was the way he sounded after a good wrestling session with Paracelsus, too. "Just not as likely to work on a werewolf as on someone else. You'd have to come up with something to compensate for our enhanced senses, you know."

For a second, just a second, Malfoy's face was open, paranoid, disbelieving. Harry took a step towards him. He had been taunting Malfoy as if they were still at Hogwarts, trying to get a reaction from him, but now that he saw the reaction, he didn't want to continue the taunting. He wanted to touch it, caress Malfoy's face as he looked like that, promise him it would be all right if he actually acted on all the emotions Harry could smell anyway.

But then Malfoy turned his head away, and said, "I think that I've had too much to drink. May I have an escort back to the guest quarters?"

"Of course," Harry said, and held up a hand. Lisa Northron came leaping lightly through the trees. She was blond and blue-eyed and looked the picture of health, without the scars that marked some of the others, since she was the newest member of the pack. She was also someone who supported Harry instead of trying to plot against him, and Harry thought Malfoy needed someone like that right now. "Lisa will guide you back to your rooms."

Lisa smiled at him and Malfoy, and then led Malfoy off through the trees. That left Harry and Ninian looking at each other.

Harry nodded to him. "You're more isolated than you were, you know," he said.

Ninian tensed for a second, then frowned and said, "I don't know what you mean."

"Some of the others who thought I was a horrible leader have changed their minds." Harry tilted his head at the centaurs and dryads nearby. A circle of them had surrounded a hefty chestnut centaur who was pawing a small hole in the ground with a sturdy hoof as he told them a story. "I've won willing acceptance of our presence in the Forest and our claims to the territory from the centaurs and the dryads _both_. You had several people on your side who didn't think I could do that. But they came this evening and told me that they've changed their minds, that they think I can lead the pack well now. Even if it's not in the most conventional way," he added delicately, and watched Ninian's cheeks darken to purple.

"I was doing nothing but _chatting _to the Ministry employee," said Ninian, and showed his teeth, although he wasn't quite foolish enough to look Harry in the eye. "You were the one who decided to throw a feast for him."

"Of course I was," said Harry, and winked at Ninian, and turned and loped away. He knew his turned back was an invitation, and Ninian might take it. But he restrained himself with nothing more than a faint snarl and a sound of tearing at the benches.

What Harry had said was true. He'd talked to a lot of people, and some of them were changing their minds, even June. His decision about Thornsberry was still irritating them, but June had looked him in the eye, grunted, and said, "Well, you achieved this. Let's get Thornsberry here, and see if you can tame him."

Sarah and Ninian and the people who felt like them were still problems, but Harry's pack was only large, not infinite, and he had won most of them over. They would find themselves increasingly trapped into either having to challenge him directly or give over on the complaints. Harry suspected he knew which they would choose, but that was not his problem.

* * *

Draco sat down on the bed in the guest quarters and waited until he was sure that the young werewolf who had led him here was utterly gone. Then he raised some more wards around the house and clasped his hands in front of him.

He could imagine the look on Invisible Heldeson's face if she ever found out what he had done here, today. Begging for forgiveness would make it worse. What he had to do was retrieve what had gone wrong, and quickly.

His traps and artifacts probably wouldn't work on Potter. Fine. It was true that Draco hadn't designed them with a werewolf as the top choice among his possible victims.

In fact, his cube hadn't even worked as well as it should when Woolwine confronted him. How would he make it into something that did? What kind of artifacts could he create with werewolves in mind?

Draco sighed. His thoughts were turning down the old, familiar, comforting paths of artifact-working. Which was good for his job, but not good for the challenge that confronted him now.

He had fought too hard for the position he held to give it up because he had once had a rivalry with Potter. He knew that was what had caused him to react so badly. He had the pressure of the negotiator's position that he didn't understand why he had been picked for on his back. He had the reputation of the Unspeakables to keep up. He hadn't done a good job of supporting that so far, either, let alone the neutrality and the lack of emotion that were supposed to come with the job.

He honestly didn't know if he could hold onto his temper and his emotions around Potter. It was dangerous, promising himself that he would, and then breaking the promise later. That would make him feel worse than if he had walked into the situation blind.

_Fine. I give myself permission to act as dignified as I can, but still snap at him and act weary with his antics. That might prevent another outburst like the one I had earlier._

Draco relaxed even thinking about that, which meant it was the right path to pursue. And he would say nothing more to Ninian, either, until he knew whether it was actually safe to do so. He had thought Potter was unaware of a lot of the undercurrents in his pack, but it was obvious _now _that he wasn't, and it might be dangerous to try and manipulate another werewolf against him until Draco knew if that werewolf was really strong.

_And am I here to manipulate werewolves against him, anyway? Am I here to make him lose his position? I know that someone wanted to bring me into this mess for more reasons than just persuading Potter not to adopt Thornsberry, but they never told me why. They're using me as a pawn, not a trusted partner. I have no reason to go along with them unless they choose to explain._

Draco smiled and leaned back against his pillows. All was well. He would pursue his stated purpose for now, and if the Ministry representative who had to be behind this, whoever they were, wanted to contact him and explain why he should do more than his obvious mission, they could. Otherwise, he would do that obvious mission.

_Face the job in front of you, and do it safely. _That was one thing Invisible Heldeson had taught him as well, when she lectured in front of the small class containing Draco and a few other trainee Unspeakables. _The artifacts we tend are beyond price, but we also need the brains to work with them. A trained mind is worth its weight in artifacts._

The purposes of the Unspeakables would not be served if Draco died out here trying to lead a werewolf rebellion against Potter. And he didn't care about the purposes of any other Ministry Department.

He rearranged a few of the artifacts to be under his pillow instead of on his belt, and fell asleep, and slept well.

* * *

"Unspeakable Malfoy. Would you like to discuss the business that brought you now, or wait until I have a full complement of the pack assembled?"

Draco paused for a second with his hand on the tree in front of him. The same werewolf who had guided him back to his house last night had met him this morning and led him in much the same way, twisting and turning back and forth among the roots. Draco had expected to see the tables still there, covered with food. None of the werewolves he'd seen had seemed much interested in cleaning up after themselves.

But instead, there was only a single round table, shaped of oak in a way that indicated it had probably been Transfigured instead of carved. Potter was seated at it, with a large breakfast in front of him. Disbelieving, Draco looked at pots of butter and some kind of thick fruit spread, piles of bangers and bowls of what looked like porridge, neatly arranged kippers on a plate that Potter was just finishing off, and cups of foaming milk.

He supposed they might make the fruit spread themselves, even the butter and the milk if they kept cows, but this stuff all looked too neat for the werewolves living in the wilderness that he had seen on his first steps into the Forest. He looked into Potter's eyes, and asked, "Do you have this large a breakfast every morning?"

Potter smiled. "No. Like the feast last night, most of this is in honor of you." He waved his hand over the plates. "But I do try and make sure that we have food on hand in case guests come. And some of my people aren't as infamous as I am. They can go into Diagon Alley to buy food and not attract attention. Now, come on. You must be hungry."

Draco decided he had nothing to lose by complying with that indirect order. He walked forwards and sat down in front of Potter, who began to pick up a plate and glass. "Which do you prefer, tea or milk or pumpkin juice?" he asked, glancing at Draco. "I'm afraid that we don't have any coffee this time. Periwinkle drank it before she got it back to camp. Next time, I'm not going to let her be the one to buy it, no matter how much she begs."

"You're going to serve me with your own two hands?" Draco blurted.

Potter cocked his head a little. "Ah. You thought we were _that _kind of werewolf. I don't mind doing things like this. I just mind fighting bloody challenges to the death and abiding by all sorts of stupid rules all the time. Those rules aren't traditional or anything. How could they be, when werewolves have mostly lived as outcasts from wizarding society, and not in organized packs? They're human idealizations of the way that wolves live." He grinned. "With, somehow, the constant disease and lack of hunting success and familial relationships in the pack conveniently forgotten most of the time."

Draco sat down hard. "I'll take pumpkin juice," he said. He could use the touch of familiarity in what was rapidly becoming the strangest situation he'd ever been involved in. "And porridge, and salt if you have it."

Potter nodded, and exchanged the plate for a bowl. Draco watched his hands as he ladled this and poured that. He didn't have exceedingly sharp or long nails, the way Greyback and Ninian had. He must have settled into his body without spending large amounts of time close to his beast.

"There," Potter said, and pushed the bowl and the cup across the table to Draco. "You can test it for poison if you want. I don't mind."

Draco spent some more time staring. Potter just sat there and beamed at him. Draco waved his wand and tested a few spells for hexes, not poison. As Potter had said, there was nothing like that on any of the food.

Draco began to eat. The porridge was decent enough with a little salt, the pumpkin juice fresh. He let one compensate for the other, while he studied Potter and tried to determine what had changed for him between last night and this morning. Draco had made a decision, yes, but only in the privacy of his own head. And no matter what had changed since Harry Potter became a werewolf, Draco refused to think that he had become a passable Legilimens.

_He doesn't have to. Not when he can read your smell._

Draco stiffened up. How could he forget that, when it had eaten at his mind since Ninian had been the one to explain it to him? But he had forgotten it. Perhaps Potter had sensed Draco's resolve, after all, and was treating him like this to…

To what?

"Do forgive me," said Potter, bowing his head a little. Draco looked up at him and blinked. Potter had a hand resting on the table, open, as if he wanted to show Draco that he wasn't secretly sharpening his claws or clutching his wand. "I thought you were the same boy I knew at Hogwarts, with just a veneer of polish. I could smell how angry you wanted to let yourself get. I thought I could bring out that boy if I teased you. That way, I would understand you better, and the negotiations would go in a way that was favorable to my pack."

He leaned forwards intently, his green eyes so bright that Draco felt an uncomfortable little shiver of strange emotion travel up his spine. Well, he didn't know what it was, so it seemed unlikely Potter could figure it out from his scent. "But I see you've really changed. You want to be professional, and you didn't like it when I forced you to react. Sorry. I won't do that again."

Draco cleared his throat with difficulty. He hadn't expected the apology, but he ought to have, he thought. Potter would do nothing that wasn't _utterly unpredictable, _after all. "It wasn't professional to throw that bracelet at you."

"No," said Potter, but his mouth quirked a little. "But that was the first time all night I saw someone I recognized in your face. So I didn't mind it."

Draco shut his eyes and drew in a long, slow breath. Well. He had made his decision. He would act in a way that benefited the Unspeakables and let him maintain his dignity. Potter had changed things from what Draco had thought he would be doing, of course. But that was what Potter did. Draco would have to go along with the new status quo and do it in a way that could ensure he would still serve the Unspeakables' purposes.

Which were, currently, for him to succeed and get out alive, not do anything else.

"I would prefer it if you didn't do something like that again." Draco looked at his porridge. Potter's eyes were unsettling. If he had to be this honest, he didn't want to look into them. "I worked—hard for my position. I want the official title, the official robes, the sensation of being an Unspeakable even in the middle of the Forbidden Forest. I know that you might not understand, but that's what I want."

Potter was silent for so long that Draco thought he might also have to negotiate for good treatment. When he looked up, though, Potter was nodding thoughtfully.

"So you really have changed," he said. "You've grown up, and become someone who takes things like that seriously."

"I always was, Potter," Draco muttered. "I always wanted your respect." That cost him nothing to admit. He very rarely thought about his old self before the Unspeakables now. It could be dangerous to do so, anyway.

"But before, it was respect based on your family name and your father," Potter said simply. "This time, it's something you've worked hard for. Fine." He cocked his head to the side, the most animal-like gesture Draco had seen him make yet. "And I ask that you respect that I can handle Thornsberry and tame him into my pack. I wouldn't be setting up to adopt him if I thought I couldn't. I would consider the people I already have a responsibility to first."

Draco waited. But Potter didn't move, didn't take things back, didn't laugh at him, didn't apologize for insulting him. He just waited.

After a few, stunned moments, Draco understood. Potter didn't think he should apologize for explaining his view of the past as he saw it. It was a fact to him that Draco hadn't deserved respect before, and a fact that now he did.

Draco would just have to go along with that.

"That's what you're here to convince me of, isn't it?" he asked, and picked up his spoon again. "But I prefer not to discuss business over breakfast. Wait until I'm done."

Astonishingly, Potter sat back, and did.


	6. Negotiate the Dance

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_Chapter Six—Negotiate The Dance_

"Why do you think that you can tame Thornsberry more than any other werewolf can?"

Potter grinned. They were in the middle of a small clearing with a cottage tucked into it, which seemed to be where Potter slept. Other than having sturdier stone walls and some more flowers around it, Draco couldn't see much difference between it and the house that formed his guest quarters. He supposed if any werewolf would want a sickeningly Gryffindor and rose-covered home, it would be Potter.

They sat on long, carefully carved wooden benches in front of the house that Draco recognized as imitations of the ones in the Great Hall of Hogwarts. Potter turned towards him now, slinging a casual foot around so he was straddling the bench.

"Because I'm the kind of werewolf that could make someone into a Scion if I bit them," said Potter, his eyes very green. "And that ought to mean I can take someone else's Scion and hold onto him and turn him into a different kind of werewolf."

Draco stared at Potter. That had not been the answer he'd anticipated, and it wrongfooted him to the extent that he wasn't sure he could continue the line of questioning.

"You're too honest," he muttered at last, knowing his scent had already given him away anyway, and he needed an explanation for his silence. "I thought you would dance around and give me a load of bollocks at first."

Potter shrugged lightly. "Maybe you have time for that, in the Ministry. I don't."

"Because you have members of your pack challenging you all the time?" Draco luxuriated in the freedom to fold his arms. "It doesn't sound like you should be adopting Thornsberry at all, if you can't control your own pack."

"You met the ones who think they can find an outside ally and take the pack from me, sure," Potter said, his nostrils flaring briefly as something crashed behind Draco in the forest. Draco refused to turn and look. "But there are plenty of others who are perfectly happy to lead their lives and occasionally do something I ask."

"_Occasionally_?" Draco had to ask. Potter had seemed pretty bloody involved in the lives of the other werewolves, from what Draco had seen last night. Convincing a bunch of werewolves, who had been wizards and prejudiced against other magical beings, to welcome centaurs and dryads among them would have taken a lot of work.

"Some times more than others," Potter said, unaffected. "For example, I had to spend a lot of time arguing with them that it was going to be all right to have a Ministry representative sniffing around here. I reminded them that you don't have as strong a nose as we do."

Draco stared silently at him. "How literal was your metaphor?" he finally asked, and let his hand fall casually to his wand. "If you mean to turn me into a werewolf, then you should know I have methods to resist that kind of thing."

"How deep is your paranoia?" Potter gave something that could have been a smile if a smile normally showed that many teeth. "I was explaining the kind of thing I said to my werewolves. I know that you're not here to find out all our secrets and stir up changes in our way of life—although I had my doubts when I saw you talking to Ninian last night. I know that you're here to persuade us not to take Thorsnberry. That was all I meant."

"I didn't mean to stir up rebellion," said Draco. Potter sounded more serene than he did at the moment, but that wasn't to be helped. "I thought it would be a useful means of undermining and distracting you."

Potter waved a hand. "And you were irritated with me, and willing to do what you could to strike back at me without it being direct. I understand. I shouldn't have picked at you the way I did."

_His nose gives him an unfair advantage. _Draco couldn't tell what he was projecting to Potter now, but at least he could be poised and calm on the outside. That it was for his own satisfaction more than anything else didn't lessen the importance of it. "Fine. I do question, though, how someone with more than one person plotting behind his back and resenting his leadership is going to have the time to devote to Thornsberry."

Potter grinned. "It's not so much time—not at first. It's power. I have to overwhelm Thorsnberry's senses and convince him that he'll submit to me. Then I can take longer to actually change him from Fenrir Greyback's Scion into someone who will go along and get along with me."

Draco frowned and lifted one of the artifacts, a long, thin whip of silver leather, off his belt. He made sure that Potter could see him doing it and track every movement if he wanted to. "Do you mind if I use this? It'll help me get a better sense of your magical power. You don't feel stronger than Fenrir Greyback, and right now, I don't know how you would overpower his influence."

"You don't trust what anyone says much, do you?" But Potter sounded as though he was choking back a laugh. He held his hands out to the sides. "I don't know how much your artifact will tell you. I mean power in a different way. But sure, go ahead."

No one else had ever been this calm about letting Draco use one of his artifacts on them, even Unspeakables who knew exactly what they did. Of course, that might also come from knowing what these artifacts had done _before _Draco got hold of them. This particular whip, for instance, had been able to cause despair to any person it flayed.

Draco held back one more instant, taking in Potter's wide-open hands and gaze, before he nodded and cracked the whip.

It curled around Potter's right wrist, his wand hand as Draco remembered from school, and for a second, Draco's senses flooded with light and color. He would be able to sense Potter's strength from this. Most people felt like either heat, light, or a combination of both. The colors were only temporary, like a Portkey, signaling the transition from the whip touching someone to it telling him the truth.

Except, this time, the colors didn't vanish. They went on building, complicated swirls of white and purple and blue collecting like the tumbled layers of a kaleidoscope, reaching and turning and falling on each other every time Draco thought he had them under control and could analyze them. He began to panic, a bit. Was something going wrong because he had used the whip on a werewolf instead of a wizard? He had never tested this before.

Perhaps he had been naïve to assume that Potter was still a wizard. Draco hadn't seen him cast a spell since he'd been here.

But then the colors broke apart, and the familiar sensations of heat and light poured through instead. Draco felt as though he was standing inside a close little room in front of a fire that wouldn't let him get away from it. He held up his hands to protect himself against the assault, instinctively, and the whip pulled Potter's wrist with it, bringing his palm closer to Draco. Draco shuddered from the stinging warmth that hit his face.

"I think that's enough for now."

Draco jerked. Potter had unwound the whip from his wrist and coiled it back in Draco's lap; it must have been him, since Draco knew he hadn't done it, and the artifact wouldn't have done it on its own without a degree of dangerous independence that Draco made sure to introduce in none of his projects. Potter was also holding his hand, without the sensation of heat this time, peering into his face with gentle, concerned eyes.

"I don't understand all the images I got from your magic," Draco murmured to him, shaking his head.

Potter's smile widened, and he nodded. "That would make sense. I don't think most wizard artifacts are able to cope with werewolf magic. And I'm the most powerful werewolf that a lot of people have ever seen or heard of."

Draco opened his mouth, and then paused. "That's the most arrogant thing I've heard anyone say," he murmured.

Potter looked as though he was enjoying a private joke. "I thought you _did _think I was arrogant."

Draco shrugged away the reminder of his past self. He might have been forced to leave that past self behind, but now that he had, he wanted to be what he had achieved instead of who he had been born. "Things change. But you can't know that you're the most powerful werewolf in the world."

"Did I say that? Typical Unspeakable." Potter put his hands together in a manner that reminded Draco of Invisible Heldeson, but he knew it was a parody and not serious, and he was further irritated that Potter should remind him of Heldeson anyway. "Not listening to the words we ordinary people say, but the ones you want to be true, because they'll mean that you can take away powerful things from us in case we do something wrong with them."

Draco did not choose to address the question of whether Unspeakables should leave dangerous artifacts drifting around the world, either. He didn't see why Potter should control the conversation. "You can't be ordinary and the most powerful werewolf—that most people know of at the same time."

* * *

Harry sighed. He would never have thought it, but he would have to say that he missed Malfoy's sense of humor. It hadn't been very good, and he had never liked jokes that were directed at him, but at least he had _recognized _a joke.

"I'm a powerful werewolf," he said, "just like I'm a powerful wizard. But you don't rule the world because you're powerful. You don't create great art or become a great Auror just because you have power."

Malfoy was staring at him as though that line of thinking was _also _completely alien. Harry twitched back a growl in his throat. The Unspeakables had had a pretty good try at completely reshaping Malfoy, it seemed. The way that some werewolves would bite Scions and transform them for the mere pleasure of creating someone else in their image, instead of letting them be their own person.

_And what are you going to do with Thornsberry?_

Harry grinned. He had once called that voice his Hermione-voice, but he knew now that it was partially his own conscience. And sarcasm that no one else heard couldn't hurt them.

_Thornsberry is different because he has no chance to live in a regular werewolf pack, _he thought to appease his conscience, and focused on Malfoy again. "You don't think that power should be hidden sometimes?" he asked. He knew that Lucius Malfoy had hidden some of his manipulations and interferences in the Ministry.

Malfoy closed his eyes. "Magical power is different," he said, as though reciting from a textbook. "Magical power can be used to remake artifacts and minds and the world. And it's difficult to hide. Accidental magic can explode out of children even when they're not trying to do anything in particular. We cannot estimate the strength of our own desires. We cannot understand what in our minds gives rise to magic, or how our thoughts interact with our magical cores. Power will emerge, however much we try to deny it."

"I don't think it's different," said Harry. He had never read the textbook that Malfoy was quoting, and he saw no reason he should have to be impressed by it. "I think that you can be ordinary if you're powerful. If you just use it a little and not a lot, or if you only want to be one thing. I mean, if I'd stayed an Auror, I might never have been great. I could have just solved regular cases and captured a few people, or something."

Malfoy's eyes popped open, and he stared at Harry strangely. "But your magical power is what let you take control of the pack."

"You weren't here for the duels," said Harry, swinging a leg and grinning at him. "How do _you _know? I ought to tell you right now that Ninian is a biased source."

Malfoy put a hand to his head. Apparently Harry was giving him a headache. "There's no way that you could have taken leadership of the pack, even in an unconventional way, unless you somehow defeated the older leader."

Harry rolled his eyes. "And of course cleverness would play no part in that. Or brute strength. Or setting the situation up to my advantage."

Malfoy frowned and didn't answer. Harry thought they had wandered far from the main point, so he returned to it. "Anyway. You said you think I have a lot of power, and I told you that, and that I would be able to hold onto Thornsberry and convince him not to attack anyone. So me having a lot of power ought to convince you further that it's possible. Why not?" he added, because Malfoy was shaking his head again.

"I don't know how to interpret what I saw through the whip in the way that I would interpret an ordinary wizard's powers." Malfoy's mouth was turned down again. "And Thornsberry isn't here, and I don't think you've adopted any other Scion into your pack, so I don't know how you will convince me that you can handle Thornsberry."

"No other Scion, but there are some people who wouldn't mind helping me with a demonstration," Harry said, and called, "Lisa!" through the forest.

It made Malfoy jump. Harry shrugged an apology at him. He knew that his voice had changed since he'd become a werewolf; Hermione had told him it was deeper and fuller. Ron had said that he couldn't describe how, but it was different. Harry only knew that his pack could hear him when he called their names in the Forest, but he thought that might be down to their changed ears as much as his changed voice.

Lisa appeared through the trees a few minutes later, looking between him and Malfoy. When she seemed to realize he didn't want her to guide Malfoy anywhere, she rocked back on her heels and turned her attention to him instead.

"Can you help me with a demonstration?" Harry asked, smiling at her. "The kind of thing that we did when you first came into the pack and you wanted to feel like you belonged?"

Lisa flushed. "Sure. But you know what reaction I had." And she looked at Malfoy again.

Harry nodded. "I know. But I don't think that Unspeakable Malfoy is going to spread gossip about your reaction. It's the nuances that he's interested in, from a, uh, magical theorist perspective. And my reaction. Right?" He looked at Malfoy.

"Considering that I have no idea what you're talking about," said Malfoy, folding his arms, "I can't tell you one way or the other what I'll need to say about it."

Harry rolled his eyes. "When she first came into the pack, Lisa wanted to feel a sense of belonging. She was a brand-new werewolf and she had heard that I wanted to welcome people, but the others didn't make her feel welcome when she got here. So I reached out with the same power I've been telling you about, the one that could tame Thornsberry, and used it to soothe her and give her a sense of home. That's what I'll be doing now."

Malfoy frowned further. He really needed to smile more, Harry thought, or his face was going to freeze that way. "Go ahead," he said at last.

Harry nodded and turned to Lisa. She swallowed and knelt down in front of him. Harry could hear her heartbeat, so quick that he reached out and gently laid a hand on her neck to calm it down. Lisa nodded and nearly ducked her head, then remembered she needed to keep eye contact with him for this. Her lips stretched in a faintly sickly smile as she looked up at him.

Harry leaned down towards her, concentrating. He felt the power springing to life and spreading out around him, the same intensity that he had felt when he battled the old pack leader, the same thing he felt whenever anyone battled him, the same heart-stopping warmth that he could summon when he needed to calm down someone who had been injured. He spread his hands and collected the warmth between them, then pressed them slowly inwards to rest on Lisa's shoulders.

It was like clutching a blanket of the sun; he could feel the heat better than he could feel Lisa's skin. But at the same time, he could feel her heartbeat, slamming against his own jaw now, and her emotions sliding through him, warmth and uncertainty and shyness and wonder, and her eyes staring into his own whirled and became the ones he was staring out of. Everything was liquid, in flux. He understood enough of Lisa to know what she needed.

_Hush, _he whispered, perhaps aloud. He could not project the thought into Lisa's mind, but he said it with the most powerful body language he could muster, the language of Lisa's body. His hands rubbed, his magic leaned out and embraced her, and their unblinking eyes were a symbol of connection now instead of challenge. _It's all right._

Lisa panted harshly and dropped her head forwards, breaking the eye contact, her face flushed. Harry withdrew from it more slowly, letting the warmth go as he spread his hands. But a second later, he made sure that he had helped Lisa to her feet. Sometimes breaking away like that could hurt the pack member as much as the pack leader.

"Are you all right?" he whispered.

"Yes," said Lisa, and cleared her throat. "I didn't moan this time, did I?"

Harry laughed softly. "I honestly didn't notice." He turned to ask Malfoy if she had.

But Malfoy was gone, the trampled grass marking where he had fled towards the guest quarters. Harry stared, then snarled in irritation. How was Malfoy supposed to judge whether Thornsberry could find a home in the pack if he just ran from every demonstration of Harry's power?

He could have sent Lisa to find out what was going on, but he preferred to do it himself. He sent her back to the weeding she'd been doing and stalked in the direction of the guest quarters.


	7. Resist The Temptation

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Seven—Resist the Temptation_

Draco raced into his guest quarters and locked the door behind him with a charm. Then he took one of his artifacts from his belt, a glass key that would only look delicate to undiscerning eyes, and aimed it at the door. When he murmured the trigger word, Invisible Heldeson's name, the key glowed. A second later, the door glowed in answer.

_There. _Anyone who tried to break in now would have some surprises so nasty that they wouldn't persist.

Draco flopped back on his bed, shaking. Then he buried his head in his hands and wrestled his emotions back under control. He could do this, he _could. _He _knew _he could. He had been through similar exercises in Unspeakable training, where the instructors would inflict intense illusions on them to stir up anger or fear or excitement, and then see how fast they could get themselves calm again.

A few deep breaths, a few soothing rubs of his hands over his temples, and Draco knew that his face had stopped flushing. He could speak steadily, if someone asked him to. He could fold his hands in his lap, and they weren't shaking.

But the reaction of his body below the waist was harder to get back under control.

Draco closed his eyes and counted breaths. He knew he was hard, but that did not matter. What mattered was the passage of air in and out of his lungs, the way that his chest heaved, the precise placement of the creases in his robes beneath his hands.

Slowly, slowly, both his excitement and his erection shrank. He could still think of Potter forcing the young werewolf to her knees and looking into her eyes; he had to. That might be important to the way that Potter intended to tame Thornsberry, and thus to the report Draco had to make to the Unspeakables. But he had to handle this without undue interest on his part.

There should never have _been _interest in the first place, except the cool kind that any Unspeakable would show on encountering a new branch of magic for the first time. The ability of werewolves to tame werewolves was new. Draco could admit that. It was interesting. He could admit that, too. Until now, he had thought that only a werewolf who bit someone could tame and soothe them like that, and that was if they made a Scion the way Greyback had made Thornsberry.

Potter's ability to tame a werewolf he hadn't turned—as far as Draco knew—did make it more likely that he could take charge of Thornsberry. But he wouldn't make assumptions. He would turn the matter over in a report to Invisible Heldeson and see what she thought of it.

Someone knocked on his door.

Draco sighed. He wanted to leave the locking charms up, but the magic he had used through the key could harm the werewolf who tried to open the door, and the last thing Draco wanted to risk was a diplomatic incident. "I'm here," he called, and used the key to reverse both kinds of magic he had cast on the door.

He didn't get up to open it, and after long seconds, as though the person on the other side was waiting for him to do that, it swung open on its own. Draco made sure to render his expression as bland and indifferent as possible.

That became a little harder to do when Potter entered the room and leaned against the wall, gazing at Draco as if he was the most interesting thing in the universe.

Draco lifted his chin higher and higher, showing off his throat. Wasn't that supposed to be a submissive gesture? Potter might pay attention to that instead of the quickening of blood in Draco's body, or the hormones surging through it.

"I thought we were trying to get over acting like our childish selves," Potter said. "Running away without saying a word, just because you were disgusted by what you witnessed, isn't acting like much of an adult."

Draco felt himself flush again, and he opened his mouth, not sure whether he would speak with absolute politeness or not. But at the same moment, he saw Potter lift his head and sniff.

He gave Draco an incredulous stare.

Draco's flush had deepened to the point where his cheeks hurt. But he would still try to save what little face he could. "I agree that it was unprofessional," he said, and thank Merlin, his voice was calm. "But that just makes it all the more obvious I shouldn't have been chosen for this task. Let me go back to the Ministry, and they'll choose someone else to send instead, someone who will be better for it." He made to stand up.

Potter reached out and touched his arm. Draco winced. The hand felt hotter than it should, and he knew it wasn't because a werewolf's skin was always warmer than a human being's. The extra heat shimmered in Potter's eyes, as well. Draco dreaded the words that would come out next.

"Wait."

Draco waited, glad to have a clear course to follow. Maybe he shouldn't have been so fucking relieved to hear an order; Potter wasn't Invisible Heldeson and shouldn't have any right of command over him. But this day had gone from bad to worse, and all within the span of one hour.

"I was trying to show you, through Lisa, that I have the magic to make a werewolf feel calm and cooperative and part of the pack," said Potter, taking his hand back and prowling a short distance away. He didn't look as though he was leaving, though. "That's the magic that will tame Thornsberry."

"Ex-expecting me to believe that, when you have people like Ninian running around who disdain you, is ridiculous," Draco said. "If you really had it, you'd use it on them, and break through the opposition."

"I won't use it on someone who's not willing."

"And you expect Thornsberry to simply be _grateful _about it?"

Potter smiled a little. "No, but I do think that he would welcome a place in a pack, and that's enough reason for me to try. If he challenges me or argues with me or can't be overcome by my power, then I'd allow the Ministry to take him back." He shrugged when Draco went on staring at him, as if he didn't understand what the problem was. "I don't know for sure if I can work. I'm just mostly sure that it will."

Draco shook his head. "This is bigger than me. You need to get someone from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement here, someone who can tell you if that's even legal—"

"But I thought you were supposed to persuade me out of keeping Thornsberry, or trying to claim him." Potter took a single, intent step forwards. "Why would the reason I think I can control him matter?"

"Stop," said Draco. Potter hadn't actually taken another step towards him, but he knew what would probably happen if he did.

"I wasn't moving."

Draco flashed Potter a glance that he knew was hostile. He didn't fucking _care_. He had already been embarrassed and cornered often enough that he was thinking about walking away from the whole thing. Some of the Unspeakables received training similar to the Aurors'; they could figure out from their knowledge of intrigue in the Ministry who would have suggested Draco for this ridiculous negotiation. They could talk to Potter. They could figure out whether Thornsberry would be susceptible to his magic. The only thing Draco knew for sure was that someone else could do this.

"I don't know why you reacted to my magic," Potter continued, calmly. "Only werewolves are supposed to, and it works best with werewolves who've already joined the pack and accepted my authority."

"Then I _wonder _why you're so confident that it'll work with Thornsberry," Draco had to interrupt.

"But I didn't mean for it to embarrass you," said Potter. "You're not the first to react that way, either, even if you are the first non-werewolf. That's one reason Lisa didn't want to do it in front of you."

Draco stared at Potter with unblinking eyes, but only ended up blinking himself when Potter continued being blandly uncomprehending. "Then why did you ask her to do it in front of me? Do you enjoy subjecting your pack to tests of their loyalty or something?"

Potter shook his head. "Of course not. But I did want you to see what weapon I'm going to use against Thornsberry."

Draco closed his eyes. "And it also turned out to be a weapon you could use against _me_."

"I never meant to embarrass you. I won't use it against you."

Draco opened his eyes at once, hearing those words. And yes, it hadn't been his imagination. They came from closer. Potter had moved towards him and was standing there with heavy-lidded eyes, staring at Draco.

"Stay away from me," Draco whispered, and waved his wand in a single half-circle, a variant of a Summoning Charm he'd stumbled across in an old book and perfected. Every single thing that belonged to him flew over to him, except the belongings he'd put in the locked and warded trunk. That only rattled. With a muttered hiss, Draco cast the Dissolving Charm on the side of the trunk, and then he really did have everything he'd brought with him. "Stay the fuck away from me," he added, when Potter looked as if he would take another step towards him.

"Such harsh words." Potter put a hand flat on his chest in what looked like mockery, but he was watching Draco with surprising intensity. "I'm wounded."

"You're not," said Draco, and discovered that there was bitter saliva on his lips. He shook his head and turned away from Potter. "You can call someone else out here to explain your theories to them. I'm done."

As he moved past Potter, Potter raised a single hand and said, "Please. Listen to me. I didn't mean to embarrass you. I never had a reason to think that you would have that reaction to my magic because only werewolves do. Will you please listen to me?"

Draco glared at Potter. Potter glared back.

And the scent of his magic still hung around him—it must be strong if Draco's unsophisticated nose could smell it—laden with some of the same darkness and warmth and power that had hit Draco earlier. He had thought at the time what it would be like to be held, to be soothed, the way that Potter was holding the werewolf. He had been excited, of course he had, but the possibility of understanding and comfort was even more attractive.

He didn't know what he would do if he stayed here another moment. He was being unprofessional and rude by running, but that was nothing next to the damage that might otherwise result. He bolted for the Apparition point.

* * *

Harry lowered his hand, blinking hard. It felt as though Malfoy still stood in front of him. Well, scent could do that, and Harry had learned in the last few years to use his nose almost as much as his eyes.

_What was he so afraid of?_

Harry shook his head. He was sure that it went back to what he had thought before: that the Unspeakables had _sculpted _Malfoy, formed and used him for their own ends. And deformed him. They had made him so embarrassed and uptight that Harry found it hard to see any trace of the boy he had once known in him.

Well, okay. So both the young Malfoy and the present one were easily embarrassed. That was one way they were similar.

But Harry didn't think most Unspeakables would have fled from his magic, even so. They would have lingered to talk about it, capable of analyzing their own responses and wondering why they'd had them. Then again, most Unspeakables would have been either volunteers or here for a discernible reason. It did seem that Malfoy had no idea why he might have been chosen, and no desire to stay here and find out.

"Are you being unfaithful to the attraction between us, Harry?"

Paracelsus was clinging to the roof of the guest quarters, and tilting his head down so that Harry could see him through the window. Harry rolled his eyes. "You know that you're still the only one I would invite to drink my blood, if I ever invited anyone."

"I know that. I only wanted to _confirm_." Paracelsus scuttled a bit closer, his fingers clinging to the wood and stone with an ease Harry thought only centipedes could match. "Why did the young Malfoy flee, then, if he didn't fear my retribution for his infidelity?"

"I don't know exactly," said Harry. "I only have theories, and all of them are too young to be shared."

"I love tender young things," said Paracelsus, and paused hopefully. When Harry didn't respond, he sighed and went on. "That may be the kind of thing I can go to the Ministry and find out. Including who assigned Malfoy to the Thornsberry case?"

"You heard that, too?" Harry shook his head. "I should give up on anything remaining private in this pack, I suppose."

"You might want to consider cleaning yourself a bit before you venture back among your followers. They'll smell the scent of arousal."

"I only touched Malfoy once," said Harry, and sniffed at his hand a bit. No, none of the scent clung there.

"I was referring to the arousal that belongs to _you_."

Harry stared up at Paracelsus, eyes narrowed. He had been too focused on Malfoy and Lisa to think much about what he was feeling himself, but it was true that his body felt focused, his senses narrowed, the way they did when he was hunting. He normally didn't feel it when he was human.

And, well, he wouldn't have expected to feel it with Malfoy, either. He never did with Lisa or the other werewolves that he had soothed and gave a sense of home with his power. Why for a non-werewolf?

He was still musing about that when Paracelsus struck.

Harry leaped aside, muscles functioning better than his brain at the moment, and Paracelsus, who had torn through the window of the guest quarters, slammed into the opposite wall, the one behind Malfoy's bed. Harry pictured Malfoy lying there for a moment, trying to deal with a suddenly intruding vampire. He growled.

"I do prefer your smell when your blood is up." Paracelsus crouched on his haunches, eyes dilated and nostrils working hard enough that Harry was a little revolted. Then he moved in one of those blurs of speed that vampires were famous for.

Harry had already chosen where he wanted Paracelsus to go, and simply activated the trap with a sweep of his wand as he sprang aside. The wards on the inside of the guest quarters, not usually active because they would seal a guest into the room until a pack member released them, engaged with a hiss. Paracelsus cried out as they formed in a net of white light between the bed and the wall, curled around his limbs and his neck, and bound him to the floor.

"I don't appreciate your offer of help when it comes with conditions like this," Harry told him, sauntering over to inspect him. Showing the weakness of fear would only cause Paracelsus to attack again. "I'll investigate Malfoy on my own. They probably do have a strange reason for assigning him to this case, but I think we'll find out easily enough."

Paracelsus twisted his head and hissed at him. "I have friends in the Ministry who could obstruct your search."

"That you do," Harry agreed. "But I'm willing to overlook this attack. It's just your way. However, if you block me, you'll never taste my blood."

Paracelsus went motionless in that way only a vampire could, as if he had suddenly become stone. Harry waited. He had nothing to lose by holding still, and in the meantime, he could inspect the wards and make sure they didn't need to be renewed.

"You are pretending that you still have a serious offer for me?" Paracelsus whispered.

"Yes," said Harry. "If you're strong and clever enough to take it, then I'd let you. But if you block my investigation into what's going on with Malfoy, then I'll be happy enough to just kill you."

Paracelsus bowed his head to the floor, between his spread hands. "Forgive me, great master. I did not mean to presume."

"You're an idiot sometimes," said Harry. "Do I have your promise that you won't interfere with anything I do in the Ministry?"

"You have my promise that I'll go back to the Ministry and bring you the true information on Malfoy that it might take you months to get."

Harry raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"I will," said Paracelsus, and his eyes were as soft as the forest. "For a chance to taste your blood, I'll do anything."

Harry considered it, then shrugged. At least he thought that Paracelsus had taken his threat to deny him his blood seriously, and so he was unlikely to interfere with the questions that Harry asked. Whether he would actually help was a different matter. "Fine. I'm going to let you go now. Attack me again right now, and we'll consider the promise null and void."

He lifted the wards by drawing his wand down in front of him. Paracelsus rose to his feet, bowed, and leaped through the window. Harry listened until he was sure that the faint creaking of branches marked him leaving the pack's territory altogether.

Then he settled back on the bed in the guest quarters and shut his eyes. The lingering scent around him was addictive, dark, warm—the same way that Lisa had described Harry's own power being.

_Aroused? Maybe so._

_And that just doubles the amount of questions I have to ask._


	8. Investigate the Mystery

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Eight—Investigate the Mystery_

"I do not understand why you have returned."

Draco didn't hunch his shoulders, because even a movement like that would reveal too much to Invisible Heldeson, but he wanted to at the remote, utterly cold tone in her voice.

"I returned because I was doing no good for the Unspeakables by remaining in the forest," he said, and his voice, at least, was perfect. Just being around people that he _knew _couldn't smell his emotions was improving him, he thought, doing wonders for him. "I was reacting inappropriately to the pack leader. I had not subdued my ancient rivalry for him as much as I thought. I was revealing the existence of artifacts that we had intended to keep back as weapons. I had fallen into the trap of thinking that I needed to undermine Potter and dismiss him from being pack leader, when that wasn't my purpose at all."

Heldeson stared at him. Draco had a brief stab of envy in the back of his mind. How did she do that without conveying any emotion? If he had done it, he would have shown impatience or eagerness or scorn, _something_.

"You were indeed not there to fight with Potter or to make him lose his place as pack leader," said Heldeson at last. "I wonder that you can admit that to me with a straight face."

Draco looked off to the side. He had wanted to hide his shame, but in doing so, he was letting down his Department in another way. An Unspeakable was dedicated to truth. He or she had to figure out what an artifact really did, not what its owner thought it did or lied about it doing, so that they could use or reshape it. Invisible Heldeson already knew something was wrong. Draco had failed to maintain the ice façade anyway. He might as well tell her and let her help him.

"It was something else," Draco whispered. "Potter could smell my emotions, and that unnerved me so much that I acted rashly."

Silence from the other side of the desk. Draco didn't look up until Heldeson said, "You will look at me."

A simple order, at least, he knew how to obey. Draco turned his head and met her eyes.

"Of course a werewolf can smell one's emotions," said Invisible Heldeson. "That should not have taken you so off-guard."

"Yes, Invisible," said Draco. That was safe, both a response and a joining-in of her condemnation of himself. He knew no safer response to make than that, in fact.

Heldeson gave him one searching glance, then continued. "In the meantime, we must deal with your flight. You wish to know why the Ministry chose you to use as liaison to Potter."

"Yes, Invisible."

"I have made inquiries," said Heldeson. "It seemed strange to me as well, to take an Unspeakable away from the work that he is trained at and needed for. But I have satisfied myself that it was for a reasonable purpose. You are not to start or flush or protest if someone asks you about it. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Invisible."

"You will return to the pack," said Heldeson, standing. "Not right away, because we must give Potter time to recover from any offense he is feeling. But no later than the day after tomorrow. Do you promise this to me?"

Draco nodded and rose. "Yes, Invisible." He moved out of her office. He was always dismissed when Invisible Heldeson stood up in that particular way.

In the meantime, he had other things that he should do. Such as looking at the artifacts that were being recently reshaped and tested by other Unspeakables like himself, and seeing if any of them were available to test.

Especially any that would cover his scent.

* * *

"Your Malfoy grows more interesting the more information I find on him."

Harry felt his muscles tense despite himself, but he only raised a hand when Ron drew his wand. His friends didn't often visit the pack. When they did, they were always on edge—not from Harry, but because of the Forbidden Forest's reputation. Harry had enough trouble keeping them from drawing their wands at every sound. It was probably going to be worse now, he thought.

"It's okay, Ron," he said, standing up and moving away from the little table in front of his house that held the remains of biscuits and tea. "Paracelsus and I have an understanding."

"He's a bloody _vampire, _mate," Ron said, but put his wand down and picked up his tea. Next to him, Hermione had one hand on his wrist and a tolerant smile for Harry. She would react swiftly enough if Paracelsus came out of the shadows, though, Harry knew.

He nodded back to them and went to stand at the edge of the trees. Paracelsus had concealed himself well enough that Harry couldn't see him at first, not until the wind turned and told his nose where to look. Paracelsus was pressed against a tree with double trunks, elegantly slanted so that he took part in the shadows much more than he would otherwise.

"Malfoy's interesting?" Harry asked, lounging against the nearest trunk of the double tree himself and keeping an eye out for sticks and stones and dirt clods and all the other things that a vampire familiar with the Forbidden Forest could potentially turn into deadly weapons.

"Yes," said Paracelsus. He pressed one hand against his mouth as if to cover his fangs, as if he had never threatened to drink Harry's blood. That was another bit of his playacting, and Harry stood there patiently until Paracelsus dropped his hand and gave it up. "The order to send him to the pack didn't originate in the Department of Mysteries."

"Interesting, yes," Harry said. He had learned a long time ago never to react too much to anything Paracelsus did, outside of an actual attempt to attack him. Too much eagerness only led Paracelsus to taunt and withhold information. Harry had decided that he couldn't help it, because he was an idiot, and idiots were like that. "I wonder why a Department outside the Unspeakables would have such interest in Malfoy. Or perhaps I should be questioning why they want me stymied, or Thornsberry an outcast. Thank you for confirming that."

He took a step back, opening his mouth to call Ron. He must have hit the right note of disinterest to bring out Paracelsus's irritation, because he snapped, "It came from the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. I would have _told_ you if you had _asked_."

"Yes, yes," said Harry, and gave Paracelsus a smile of his own that showed no teeth. Paracelsus had used smiles with teeth as an excuse to lunge at him in the past, explaining that he had thought Harry was being threatening. "I understand. But since you can't have tracked the rumor to a specific person this fast, I'll thank you for what you've done and put my people on it."

"The office of the Minister."

Harry couldn't hide the way he turned back or his heartbeat accelerated at that. Minister Hinsley was someone he didn't know very well, although he had been one of the Aurors who'd trained Harry, briefly. He'd barely become Minister when Thornsberry attacked his son and was imprisoned, and although the boy hadn't died or turned, Hinsley had dealt with the ramifications of the bite and Thornsberry's rushed trial, which some people had criticized. And then Harry had suffered his own bite, and had had other things to worry about.

"Interesting, again," he said, since he had already revealed enough intrigue to make Paracelsus look smug, and he might as well see if he could get more out of him. "I wouldn't have thought Hinsley had any particular grudge against me."

Paracelsus chuckled, a noise like beetles chewing through wood. "Perhaps he finds your proposal to adopt the monster who ravaged his son distasteful."

"Thornsberry didn't turn or kill him," said Harry, and then gave up. He didn't really want to defend Thornsberry. He just wanted to see if it was possible to make people stop saying all werewolves were horrible because of him. "Fine. Thank you."

Paracelsus tightened his hold on the branch and leaned towards him. "You said that you would give me your blood for finding that out," he whispered.

"Did I?" Harry pretended to think it over. "No, I didn't. I'm sure that no words like that ever crossed my lips."

Paracelsus showed his fangs, and there was no doubt about what that meant when a vampire did it. Harry only looked him in the face and didn't move, until Paracelsus huffed at him—an extravagant gesture, with the breath it required—and turned as if to flow back into the Forest.

Harry was ready for it when Paracelsus leaped away from the double-trunked tree and the trunk he'd been clutching fell towards Harry.

He side-stepped and gripped the trunk at a point where it would make a good weapon to swing if Paracelsus was stupid enough to think Harry helpless because his hands were occupied. Paracelsus stood watching him, but made no attempt to come nearer. Harry nodded and heaved the trunk back, letting it crash into the earth.

"Thank you for your help," he repeated pointedly, and waited until Paracelsus had made his fangs flash again and withdrawn. Then he sighed and shuffled back to his friends, not turning his back on the forest.

"I think he's mental," said Ron, once Harry was sitting again. The look on his face said that he wasn't far from thinking Harry was mental, too.

"My relationship with him is weird," Harry acknowledged, reaching out and scooping up the last cinnamon biscuit. Ron would eat it, otherwise. "I know he'd rejoice to drink my blood, and some of my pack would rejoice to see me fall to him." He licked a few crumbs off his fingers, for the pleasure of seeing Hermione wince instead of lecture him. "But not all of them."

"I don't think you should stay here." Hermione put her elbows on the table, then flushed and took them off. Harry knew it was something that she'd probably get scolded for at home. "Too many people dislike you, and one of them is going to attack you some dark night."

Harry waved a hand. "No, if someone wants to take control of the pack from me, they need to do it in the open. Otherwise, too many people could claim credit for it."

"But you still have a lot of resentment brewing behind you." Hermione ate her current biscuit slowly, apparently struggling to understand. "How can you stand living in an environment like that?"

"I've always lived in environments like that," Harry said, thinking of Privet Drive, Hogwarts, even to some extent the Ministry. There had been plenty of people in the Auror program who were neutral on him, or only hard while they suspected that favoritism had made him a trainee, or ready to be friendly, or worshipping, but also some people who would always hate him for taking away their "glory" in the war or not killing Voldemort soon enough or some other silly thing. "I know how to survive them."

"You shouldn't have to, is what I think Hermione is saying," Ron pointed out.

Harry nodded. "I shouldn't have to, but this is the pack that I chose to make my stand in. And it helps that it's so close to Hogwarts. Hogwarts still feels like home."

Hermione and Ron exchanged a glance. Harry didn't always understand their private communicating glances since they had become a couple, but he knew this one. Harry was crazy, but they wouldn't argue about it with him any longer.

Harry smiled at them and held out the plate of biscuits. "More?"

* * *

Draco sighed and leaned back at his desk, staring at the uncoiled tube of glass in front of him. It ought to have been a simple thing to unravel. Glass held magic less well than many other items, perhaps because it broke so easily. There were only a limited set of uses the artifact could have been put to.

Most of the time, he could crack these puzzles in the first five hours of having the artifact, although he didn't always know immediately how to recreate it or beak it down and shape it to his use. But the cube that he used to light his way had been simple. This one, perhaps because of the way that its insides could reflect each other, was more complicated.

The door to his office opened. Draco stilled and looked up, one hand still poised over the glass tube. It was unlikely that someone seeking to reclaim their "stolen" property would make it this far into the Department of Mysteries, but on the other hand, he had few surprises visitors.

He recognized the man's face, but vaguely. Then he recognized it fully, and stood up, bowing his head a little. "Minister Hinsley."

The man, his hair pale and his eyes paler, stood a moment looking around the office, not acknowledging Draco's nod. Draco watched him in turn. He had a wand holster along his arm, but he showed no signs of drawing it. And he was alone.

Then he turned back to Draco, and sighed, and drew up the chair that Draco kept for Unspeakables he was collaborating with. "May I talk to you, Unspeakable Malfoy?"

"Yes, sir," said Draco, and thought he succeeded in keeping the puzzlement from his voice. If Invisible Heldeson had learned there was a good reason for him being sent, something that had to do to with the Minister, he should have had no reason to visit Draco.

The Minister sat down with another sigh and folded his hands on his belly, gazing at Draco. Draco just waited. Whether he was in trouble or only dealing with someone paranoid, he had come this far without showing much emotion. He would continue with a winning strategy.

"I understand that you left the werewolf pack we had assigned you to spy on," said Hinsley.

"I understood that I was there as a negotiator, and not a spy," Draco said. "I was not an effective negotiator. I was undermining the interests of my Department instead of furthering them. So I left."

"You will need to return," said Hinsley. "There's no one else so effective at getting under Potter's skin. We know that. We need you to go there and rattle him, and learn what he thinks his secret is for taming Thornsberry."

"My report to Invisible Heldeson did contain that information, sir." Draco looked at Hinsley's left ear, since looking at his face would only confuse Draco further. "Potter showed me how he intended to hold Thornsberry, working with a packmate of his. He can use magic to calm and soothe them, and to make them feel a sense of belonging. I saw the packmate go from uncertain about participating in the demonstration in front of me to blushing and acting very—very aroused, sir."

He didn't know how much Hinsley knew about his own arousal. He kept his mouth shut while Hinsley stared at him. Perhaps he hadn't read the report after all, although Draco knew he had been mercilessly clear. One had to when one was a failure.

"That cannot be the truth," said Hinsley. "That is the same thing he told us in a letter he wrote to us. He was lying."

Draco blinked, once. "Why, sir?" _Why did you send someone as negotiator when you already knew how Potter intended to do it?_

"Why would he tell us the truth?" Hinsley tapped one hand sharply on his knee. "I hope that you're not going to argue Potter is a paragon and a truth-teller, the way that some of my own people did when I suggested we plant a spy in his pack."

"Never that, sir," said Draco, eyes firmly on the lobe of Hinsley's ear. "But it did seem as though his magic worked the way he said it did."

_You didn't tell me the previous information. You sent me in blind._

And why did Potter have to be rattled and undermined by someone from the Ministry, anyway? The Ministry was easily expert enough in politics to exploit the tensions in Potter's pack.

Nothing about this made sense.

Draco tried to swallow and tell himself that it didn't _need _to make sense. If Invisible Heldeson had investigated it and discovered information that satisfied her, then Draco needed to accept her satisfaction and act on it. She wouldn't sacrifice one of her Unspeakables because of a mistake in another Department. She had said that trained minds were valuable.

"The magic worked on you, didn't it?"

And so perhaps Hinsley had read the report. Draco looked back into the man's face, and managed to gain strength and confidence from that look, after all. He inclined his head. "Yes, sir. I felt as though I wanted Potter's protection and comfort."

"That kind of magic wouldn't work on non-werewolves if it was the kind of magic that Potter said it was." Hinsley's face was narrow with satisfaction. "All the experts we can find on werewolves assure us of that. Potter was using something _else, _and whether that something works on humans or not, it definitely can't tame Thornsberry in the simple way he says it can. He was lying. We need another opinion."

Draco's shoulders relaxed. He had thought something was wrong with _him _for reacting to Potter's magic. But what if it was only that Potter was stronger than anyone thought, stranger than anyone thought? His magic had always been strange, from his survival of the Killing Curse. It would make sense that he wasn't like other werewolves.

Draco shouldn't have doubted.

"If you think that I can rattle Potter into providing that opinion, sir," he said, "then I'll try."


	9. Combat the Feeling

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Nine—Combat the Feeling_

Draco had assumed that his second entrance into the Forbidden Forest would be much the same as his first one. Perhaps he would be met by a different member of Potter's pack, or he would remember part of the path and find his way there on his own. But he had no reason to think that much would change, and he walked towards the Forest filled with that kind of confidence.

His steps faltered the instant Potter stepped out of the forest and nodded familiarly to him.

Draco clenched down on the need to flee, though, and reminded himself of what he had decided before he left the Ministry. He could still show emotions and let Potter smell them without shaming himself or the Department of Mysteries, as long as he didn't let them distract him from his goal. He had a purpose here, one that he had follow. That purpose was the important thing.

Not how much shame and humiliation he might suffer in the work of fulfilling it.

"Hullo," said Potter, grinning at him. "I heard you were coming back, and I thought you might need a guide."

"You heard I was coming back?" Draco thought he could ask the question without giving too much away. After all, Invisible Heldeson and the Minister would probably want to know the answer, too. "From who?"

"I have some people in the Ministry who still tell me things they think I need to know," said Potter, with a wave of his hand, and he turned and walked beside Draco as they stepped onto the first of the paths that wound through the forest in the direction of the pack's territory. Draco tried not to be hyper-conscious of the way that Potter breathed and shifted around, and the way his sweat smelled. "They were the ones who warned me about there being a Ministry negotiator in the first place, and then told me it would be you."

"So you had an advantage over me even before I arrived," Draco noted, and nothing he could have done would prevent his voice from being tight.

"What do you mean, advantage? Unless you're going to tell me that you didn't know who they were sending you to negotiate with."

Draco frowned and looked away. Criticism from Potter was something he'd assumed he'd have to deal with, but he'd also assumed that it wouldn't make him uncomfortable. "No, of course I knew."

"Then what's the problem?" Potter stopped in the middle of the path and stared at Draco.

"The _problem_," Draco said, picking his words so they would all come out as clear as ice, "is that you've been spying on the Ministry and distrusting their words all along. Of course you're going to distrust me, too. You never meant to negotiate in good faith."

"If you think that you're the same as the Ministry, you really should think again," said Potter, and shook his head. "I don't know how you would have thought that in the first place. And spying on the Ministry is pure self-protection when you're a werewolf."

"I'm a representative of the Ministry. You need to trust me to trust them."

"Really." Potter folded his arms and lounged against a tree nearby. "And here I thought that you really cared more about representing the Department of Mysteries than you did anything else. When did you take on the concerns of the whole Ministry? Do you know something about this case with Thornsberry that I don't? If you think that he's much more dangerous than was ever reported publicly, I'd like to know."

Draco really hated the feeling of the ground shifting under his feet every few seconds. "You must know more about him than I do, if you threatened to adopt him."

"I like the word 'threatened' there," said Potter. His eyes had sharpened, but he didn't move. "And no, the only sources I have are the reports on him that were publicly released by the Ministry and some old werewolf gossip that I doubt has roots in anything current. Please tell me if he's dangerously insane. I'd like to know."

"He's the Scion of Fenrir Greyback. Bitten by him out of personal choice, and then groomed and trained until he's basically Greyback all over again. I don't know what more you need to know."

"That would explain a bit." The way Potter didn't move was getting on Draco's nerves. "If you think that's what a Scion is."

Draco almost relaxed. It would explain a lot if the Ministry and Potter were working off different definitions of what a Scion was. "Then you tell me what the werewolf idea is."

"Someone you recognize a bit of yourself in. You want to pass along what you know, and the way you think, and what you learn, but werewolves rarely have normal families with children they can give that to." Potter's voice rang in a way that made Draco think this confession might be a weakness, but he couldn't see a way to exploit it for right now, so he put it away for later. "Instead, you find another werewolf who can be trained in that way. It doesn't have to be one you bit. Greyback might have bitten Thornsberry, but I can make him over again into my Scion. It just depends on the magic."

"The powerful magic you have that you demonstrated to me." Draco wondered if he had found the answer the Ministry had sent him to seek already. A werewolf pack leader might have magic that could affect normal humans, and the Ministry wouldn't know that because they had spoken more to low-ranking werewolves than pack leaders. And that would make Draco an innocent victim of something that happened often, not…

Not what he had feared.

"Yes, that power." Potter turned his head again, and if his eyes were greener than Draco had remembered and his smile was secret and delightful, that didn't matter. Draco was determined that it was not going to matter. "The power that I already explained to the Ministry, and which I don't understand why they didn't believe me about."

Draco held his eye, and lied as best he knew how. "I think they were reluctant to believe that your power could affect humans as well as werewolves."

Potter's jaw dropped a little. Then he spread his hands and said, "If they think of us as non-human, that explains a lot about them."

It was Draco's turn to halt. "Potter, you _know _that the Ministry doesn't think of werewolves as human. Otherwise, they wouldn't make them register or live apart from the rest of the wizarding world. You've been speaking in the same terms, what with saying that werewolves rarely get to have normal families. Why is this such a surprise?"

_If the fuck-ups that the Ministry is having with the werewolves are just a lack of communication…_

Draco wouldn't consider himself an expert in diplomacy or anything, but that did sound like a problem he could potentially solve. Whether or not Potter would _want _him to was another matter.

* * *

_Less than human is different from _not _being human at all._

But Harry doubted that he could make Malfoy see the difference when he had never been a werewolf. And he had confirmed, without blinking, that the Ministry knew about Harry's power already.

This conversation had gone strange places. Harry decided to push them a step further, to stranger places still. "Would you be willing to serve as our messenger back to the Ministry along with being their messenger to us?"

Malfoy went as stiff as a deer scenting for danger, and watched him out of the corner of one eye. His scent was deep and rich, changing in a complex mixture of fear and anger. "I don't know what you mean."

Harry stopped in the middle of the forest path and turned around. Malfoy's fear scent increased when Harry blocked his way, and his hand strayed towards one of the artifacts on his belt. At least that was confirmation, again unblinking, that he never came into the forest without being armed, and that some of his artifacts might do nastier things than the two he had demonstrated so far to Harry.

"Go and tell them the truth," Harry whispered, holding his eyes. "That we're still human, and that we want to be left alone. That I can tame Thornsberry because it doesn't matter if he's not a werewolf in my pack right now or my Scion; I can affect even _you_, a trained Unspeakable, so I'll be able to affect him." Harry reckoned a little flattery couldn't hurt. "That this is all a simple misunderstanding. That they think we're outside their ways and a danger to them, but we could be welcomed back inside those ways."

It was a long time before Malfoy answered. His scent didn't provide the clues that Harry's fluttering nose sought, as long as Harry concentrated. It seemed that Malfoy didn't reveal everything of his feelings right away. Or maybe this was just the sort of feeling that Harry wasn't as used to smelling as often, and didn't recognize. Even though he had been a werewolf for a few years now, he still didn't know everything his nose could do.

"I think the Ministry would accept that solution. After all, Harry Potter is known for his openness and honesty."

"I can't believe you said that with a straight face," Harry interrupted. "Not where the Ministry is concerned."

Malfoy gave him the sort of haughty look that Harry had been missing, and which the younger version of himself would have been using from the beginning of this conversation. "You might think that everyone in the Ministry hates you, Potter. That's not true."

Harry rolled his eyes. "I didn't mean hatred. I just mean that they don't _trust _me. Even now, when the _Prophet _gets bored, they print articles about how I must be lying about this or that minor aspect of the war."

In truth, those articles didn't bother Harry much, as long as people he liked or who mattered to him didn't make judgments about him based on them. Of course he had lied about some things, like Horcruxes, and they were the sorts of lies he was going to continue to use. No one else _needed _to know how Voldemort had split his soul.

"Perhaps not," said Malfoy, his voice polished. "But I believe that I said the Ministry _would _trust that."

This time, Harry caught on. "So there's some other condition keeping them from trusting me?"

"Of course," said Malfoy. His hand had left his belt, but hovered in the air somewhere between him and Harry, as if he thought that he might have to touch Harry's arm. Harry knew that would be perfectly all right with _him_, but he didn't know how to say it in a way that wouldn't send Malfoy running. "But only if you have absolute openness and honesty in return, and tell them what they need to know."

"I have," said Harry, blinking. Then he remembered Malfoy's strange issues with authority and the Unspeakables again. "Do you need my permission to tell them what I said to you? Because it's fine if you tell them whatever you like. You can show them Pensieve memories of this conversation for all I care, if that would help convince them."

Malfoy's stare sharpened, and emotions drifted through his scent again. At least this time, Harry thought he recognized the spikiest one. It was frustration. He smelled it a lot from Ninian and Woolwine, too. He had to smile.

"No," said Malfoy, his voice brittle. "I mean _all _your secrets. The Ministry knows you can affect people in ways that other werewolf leaders can't."

"What are they basing that on? I think we've established that they don't know that much about werewolves, if they don't know what a Scion really is."

Malfoy made a rough noise under his breath. "Because you're Harry Potter, and stronger than any other werewolf leader they've encountered. So you need to tell us what makes you different, and show us what kind of advantage your power would give you in negotiations with humans."

Perhaps it was hearing Malfoy also refer to "humans" as if they were different from werewolves. Perhaps it was the persistent distrust when Harry thought he had succeeded in convincing him that Harry's own magic wasn't that strange. But either way, something snapped inside Harry, and he surged forwards.

A second later, his hands were around Malfoy's head, because Malfoy's head was pinned against a tree, and Harry's chest and legs rested against Malfoy's chest and legs.

"You want a demonstration?" Harry breathed. "How about I give you one?"

He could feel the way that Malfoy's heartbeat picked up even better than he could hear it. For a second, Malfoy's hand was on his wrist, so still that Harry thought he would jerk it sideways and break it—if Malfoy could free himself from the strange trance holding him.

Then Malfoy said, in a voice like a faraway teakettle, "You said that you would never use your power on anyone who's not willing."

"I think you'd be willing," Harry whispered. "Because that way, you could bear the _exact_ tale to your superiors, and you could tell them _exactly _what it's like to be under that power, and if you still believe there's somehow a difference between me and everybody else, you would have first-hand experience to back you up."

There was silence between them then—at least on the scale of words. Harry could still easily hear the galloping of Malfoy's heart, and the way he panted, and tried to control that panting, and shifted his hands in Harry's grip. He was never going to break free that way, though. And Harry held his hands away from the artifacts on his belt. Malfoy would have to make a decision, and speak.

"Yes," Malfoy said finally.

Harry smiled, and cupped his chin. "You want to experience it first-hand?" he whispered, just to make sure that Malfoy meant what Harry thought he did.

Malfoy probably found it hard to nod with Harry holding his head like that, but he met Harry's eyes and blinked, once.

And Harry called his power, and focused it on calming Malfoy's heartbeat and making his captivity in Harry's arms warm and pleasant.

* * *

Draco knew this had been a bad idea the moment he felt the small hairs on his arms rise. It wasn't with cold, nor yet with fear. Potter's magic prevented him from experiencing either one of those.

It was with sheer, shivering warmth, the sort of awareness he had had the first time he wanted someone and they walked into a room.

It was what he had feared to find out what he was. Not just a human who was affected by Potter's strange powers, but someone drawn to Potter, compelled towards him.

_Attracted to a beast._

_Drawn to one of our enemies, who would damage us if he could. Someone who wants Thornsberry in his pack wouldn't care about the pain innocent people would suffer in the pursuit of his obsession. _

Those thoughts and words whirled through Draco's head and were gone. He drained into the heat that spread over him from the places where Potter's hands gripped his shoulders, and his belly expanded, and he was breathing, concentrating on his breathing, for the first time in what felt like years.

Potter still held him close. There was no way he could miss Draco's reaction to all of this. Draco tried to tell himself that an erection was no more humiliating than the way his scent had probably changed, and the hairs on his arms, and all the rest of a bunch of signals that Potter couldn't miss, as near to each other as they were.

It did nothing to dismiss the stinging blush in his cheeks.

Potter continued to hold him, but his face had altered. He was looking at Draco as though he had changed into someone else. Draco held back a comment that that would be _Potter's _specialty, and not his, and listened to his breathing, and savored the warmth as best he could.

Potter let him go. Draco backed a step away. There was some more silence between them, filled up with the sound of Draco's breathing quickening again, until he shut his mouth and looked away.

"It wasn't supposed to humiliate you."

Draco shivered, and continued looking at the trunk of a nearby, heavy tree that couldn't embarrass him. "But you did," he said. "You must have smelled that you did when we were in those little guest quarters after the last time."

"I'm sorry."

So maybe the tree was less able to hold Draco's attention than he'd thought. He blinked and turned his head. "What does that mean?"

"I'm sorry for humiliating you." Potter nodded to him, and his face was open and sincere in that way that Draco still thought of as natural for him, no matter how many times the _Daily Prophet _called him a liar. "I never meant to. I should have realized that it would do that, and not used the power." He turned and started walking in the direction of the pack again.

Draco followed him quickly. "Being aroused like that would humiliate anyone who wasn't a werewolf," he said.

"No. Because it aroused Lisa, too. That's why she was so uncomfortable with doing it in front of you, but she did it because I asked her. And you did it because I asked you to." Potter paused and looked over his shoulder. "I did think that it might help break you out of that insane emotionless mask you're trying to adopt, and which is never going to fit you. But if you need the mask for your job, I don't have the right to shatter it."

Draco stood in place again, watching Potter walk around the trees. Potter didn't seem inclined to wait for him or look back. Maybe he knew that Draco wouldn't abandon the negotiations again, no matter what he said, because Draco didn't want to humiliate his Department.

_That insane emotionless mask…it's never going to fit you._

Draco shook his head furiously. The emotionless mask was what the Unspeakables adopted, and had to adopt, by necessity. Because they dealt with people and artifacts that would pounce on a sliver of emotion and make it into a weakness.

And what would Draco have if he _had _stayed with that emotion, let himself be open and feel all the pain that came along with losing his family's place and prestige in the wizarding world? Nothing, of course. He'd sit in his emotions and stew and do nothing else.

With the mask that Potter was talking about, he had prestige and a job that he was good at and a group of colleagues who would take risks for him. He had to do the same thing for them if they were going to respect him.

If the mask didn't fit, that came more from his own deficiencies in making it not a mask, but part of himself.

He hardened his heart, because that was what an Unspeakable needed to do, and followed Potter.


	10. Disarm the Pack

Thank you again for all the reviews!

_Chapter Ten—Disarm the Pack_

"I notice that you haven't made good on the promise you seemed to have at first," said Ninian, sliding in alongside Draco at one of the tables for the evening meal. Even when they didn't have a feast, Draco found, Potter's pack seemed to eat at these long tables. It was probably Potter's way of going back to Gryffindor in his imagination. "The promise of working against our beloved leader."

Draco ate some more of the stew, which seemed to have a lot of pulped vegetables floating in it along with slices of meat, and said nothing. He told himself that the meat was probably rabbit—more likely to be that, anyway, than some of the other things he could imagine. He ignored Ninian.

"And now you won't even speak to someone Potter's probably told you is a troublemaker and not worth your time?" Ninian leaned back, squinting at him, one hand on his own plate that held a slice of raw meat. "Pity."

Draco turned his head. "I didn't come here to negotiate Potter's defeat," he said. "I came to find out why he thinks he can tame Thornsberry." He had so far spent three days among Potter's pack on that last mission, though, and had to admit that so far, he hadn't come across a lot of evidence that disproved what Potter had told him already. He was a powerful werewolf, and he could give anyone, even humans, a sense of comfort and belonging.

But that was what Potter claimed, and what the Ministry knew couldn't be true. There had to be something further, something stranger.

Draco just needed to know how to interpret the evidence that was probably right there in front of him.

"What if I could help you, and you could help me?" Ninian moved restlessly to his right, enough that Draco caught his eye again. "I know you can't lend me the Ministry's full support. It was a fantasy to think you could. But we might make a different kind of trade. I tell you the answer to your question, and you tell me some of what you knew about Potter when he was a child."

"I don't see how that last would help you," Draco had to point out. "I haven't met Potter since he turned into a werewolf. He's very different now than the child I knew."

Ninian frowned and picked up a piece of the raw meat, gnawing on it. "Well, I know that," he said. "And his magical and physical strength are beyond question. He wouldn't have control of us, otherwise. But what about his emotional vulnerabilities? They're the only way I can think of to attack him."

"Both you and the Ministry," Draco muttered. Minister Hinsley seemed to trust him to actually exploit Potter's weaknesses in the name of finding out the secret of his power, while Ninian wanted a little more than that.

"What did you say?" Ninian was looking at him, as Draco had discovered due to his past few days here, not like a werewolf who hadn't heard him, but like a werewolf who couldn't believe what he had heard.

Draco faced Ninian again. Hadn't he thought that he was going to serve the Department of Mysteries as well as he could? And sitting around and feeling sorry for himself didn't do that. But giving attention to the problem, and using his childish emotional outbursts as weapons in themselves, might.

"The Ministry is concerned that Potter might not be able to handle Thornsberry. You know that already, or I wouldn't have been sent."

Golden light flared in the back of Ninian's eyes. "And they should be concerned. Even if Potter managed to tame him, there would be people here who wouldn't stay in the same pack as such a notorious criminal."

Draco refrained from saying that the Ministry didn't care about the internal problems of a werewolf pack unless those problems could be twisted to further their own goals. "What I want to know is, how common is it for werewolf leaders to be able to handle someone like that? Potter said that he could make Thornsberry into his Scion. But Thornsberry is already known as Fenrir Greyback's Scion. Can Potter really change his nature? Or is he always going to run around enforcing what Greyback what would have wanted him to enforce?"

Ninian hissed a little. "A Scion is supposed to be a werewolf secret. I see that Potter has been spilling his mouth to you just the way he _shouldn't_."

Draco saw no use in saying that he had already known that tidbit of information about Scions before he came here. He didn't think Ninian would take it well. And Ninian had already gone on. "I wouldn't think it's likely at all. Greyback was the most powerful member of our kind in decades. He couldn't have taken his pack on the road like that and influenced other werewolves if it wasn't so. A pack tends to break up once it reaches a certain size, or if the leader leaves for a while."

_Or it fragments around him while he's sitting still, _Draco thought. He wondered again why Potter was so determined to hang onto people who wanted him gone, like Ninian. Perhaps it was the pack's place in the Forbidden Forest that was important to him, rather than the werewolves involved.

"If Greyback made a Scion, and I'm not saying that he did, then that Scion would stay loyal to him." Ninian snorted and folded his arms. "I never heard of this Thornsberry before he attacked the Minister's son, though, so there's reason to think that he's all _that _powerful or great. I'm just telling you what I know."

Draco held his face immobile as he considered. Potter had seemed so honest, and straightforward—and even if he couldn't dominate Thornsberry with his power, that didn't answer the question of why Potter was so confident that he _could. _But it might give Draco an idea of his power's limit.

"So it's your thought that Potter would never be able to accomplish what he says he will," he said. "Even if he's remarkable at a great number of things."

Ninian snorted. "Are all those tales they tell of him really true? Ask yourself that. How could one person _accomplish _them all?"

Draco shrugged noncommittally. "I was there to see some of them happen. It doesn't mean that he's great at everything, but some of the stranger things are true." He thought of the way that Potter had seemed to spring back to life from the gamekeeper's arms, and shivered a little. Yes, strange things were true.

"Fine," said Ninian, who now looked a little disgruntled. "Even the vast majority. He doesn't know _much _about being a werewolf. I've been one much longer than he has, and I say that it's impossible for one werewolf to change another's Scion into theirs."

"Why does Potter go along with the lie, then?"

"Because he thinks that people from the Ministry don't know enough about werewolves to prove him wrong." Ninian nodded, pleased. "It's a good thing for you that you talked to me."

Draco held his peace on that. Maybe just asking Ninian would give him some answers on what else was puzzling him. "What about this power Potter has?"

"What power?" Ninian looked around with a sneer that Draco thought was directed at his packmates. "I'm not the one who thought Potter was a harmless nobody and we shouldn't drive him out of the pack the minute he appeared."

"I meant," Draco said, "the power he has to make people hold still and feel a sense of warmth and belonging. He demonstrated it in front of me, so I know it exists. And then he demonstrated it on me, even though it's not supposed to work on humans."

Ninian froze, staring at him. Then he said, "He doesn't have that."

"Yes," Draco said, "he does."

Ninian opened his mouth as if he would continue arguing with Draco about this, but abruptly, he jerked his head up and looked over Draco's shoulder, a growl rising in his throat. Draco started to turn his head, but Potter's voice spoke before he could complete the motion, his tone relentlessly cordial. "Could I talk to you, Ninian?"

Ninian didn't back down or flinch the way Draco had thought he would, after his talk of Potter's power. He simply rose to his feet and growled, "I'm sick of this. I challenge you to a leadership battle, Potter."

Potter raised his eyebrows. He was standing not far behind Draco, so at ease that Draco wanted to hit him. He should have showed a little more discomfort or consciousness about sneaking up behind someone, at least.

"Really," he said. "I suppose you know that it'll have to wait until tomorrow morning, so everyone else can be informed of the challenge and make the circle?"

"Let it wait!" Ninian looked as if he'd foam at the mouth. "I want everyone to see what a hypocrite you are!"

"Very well," said Potter. He looked calmer than Draco thought he could reasonably be, and he found himself holding his breath, anticipating the moment when Potter would burst out with his contempt at someone who challenged him like that. But it didn't happen. "Then you won't mind leaving our honored guest alone for now, and obeying that supposedly ancient tradition that someone undertaking the leadership challenge spends his last night alone."

Ninian stood there for a moment, trembling. Draco thought he would violate the "tradition," if it even existed, and stay, but a second later, he hissed, bowed, and strode away from the tables and benches.

"And now, you." Potter sat down on the bench across from Draco, trailing his nails in the marks Ninian had left, and looking at him. "What can I do to stop you from encouraging my packmates to rebel?"

"He approached me," said Draco, but he pursed his mouth tight after that. He wasn't going to say anything else that would make him appear weak in Potter's eyes. Using the humiliation and the embarrassment that already existed to help himself was one thing. Stirring up new humiliations on purpose was something else. He turned back to his tasteless stew.

"Well?"

Draco glanced up and let himself frown. "What else do you want me to say? He approached me, and he told me interesting things."

"Really." Potter's eyes burned, but that could as easily be in reference to Ninian as to Draco himself. At least Draco was sitting down, so he wasn't standing up to let his legs tremble. "Like what?"

_Do I really want to do this? _The method of speaking directly and giving away all his secrets first was alien to Draco.

But until Ninian spoke to him, Draco had really believed what Potter had told him about Scions. And working off of false information would hurt the Department of Mysteries more than the embarrassment of one of its most minor servants.

"That a Scion can't be turned by another werewolf," said Draco, "or changed. So Thornsberry is always going to belong to Greyback no matter what you try to do to him. And that you don't have a special kind of power that can affect werewolves and humans alike, the way you've been trying to pretend you do."

"And you believe him?" Potter's voice was shallow and relaxed. "Why?"

_I wish I had a werewolf's nose, and I could smell what he was feeling right now._

But Draco rejected the thought a moment after he'd had it. He had _never _wanted to be a werewolf when he was a Malfoy alone, and he couldn't want to be one right now. Werewolves couldn't work in the Department of Mysteries. Draco would never want to sacrifice all he had gained for the sake of one possible convenience.

"Because it does sound more likely than you having a power that the Ministry has never heard of," said Draco.

Potter sighed and propped his chin on his fist. "You've received answers to those questions. Is it my fault that you and your Ministry are so distrustful of those answers that you think I _must_ be lying?"

Draco said nothing. He could remember one interrogation conducted by two Unspeakable trainees on the owner of a Dark artifact the Department hadn't been able to figure out. They had asked and asked what the artifact did; he had refused to tell them; they had got rougher, and he finally answered. But by then they didn't believe him, and they had gone on questioning him, phrasing the questions in as many different ways as possible to try and trick the truth out of him. It had taken Invisible Heldeson intervening to point out that he had probably been telling the truth when he first answered.

Draco remembered that incident well, because he had been one of the two Unspeakable trainees.

He leaned back and looked at Potter. "I distrust you because the Ministry has different information," he said. "And Ninian gave me different information yet again. Why should I trust you more than either of them?"

Potter grinned at him. "That's a better question than the one I expected you to ask. And you looked like yourself as you said it."

"I always look like myself." Draco spoke more coldly than he meant to. He knew that he couldn't rely on the Malfoy looks that had always gained power and favor before. What he needed was the cool expression and grey cloak and hood of an Unspeakable.

"But you looked like someone who breathes just now," said Potter, and went on before Draco could ask him what that meant. "I do have an answer for you, though. I have more incentive to tell you the truth. The others only want to use you. I've given you the truth from the beginning and haven't asked you to do anything for me."

"You asked me to be your messenger to the Ministry for your supposedly true information. That's something."

Draco could feel a stir of uneasiness in the back of his mind even as he spoke, though. Minister Hinsley had commanded him. Ninian had wanted to make a bargain with him. It was true that Potter hadn't done either of those things. What if he was right?

But Draco shook off that idea, because Potter had more power than Draco did in this situation. He didn't need to bargain. He would just order if he got around to that.

"Fine," said Potter, with a quick dip of his head. "But I can't make you bear the message. I asked you."

"Just as Ninian asked me to listen to him."

Potter sighed and stood up, shaking his head. "I don't think that the Ministry has a motive to tell you the truth. They flung you into this situation in the first place without enough truth to make a decision. Just remember that."

He turned away before Draco could ask him what _his _motive was, then. Because what he had already hinted was simply unbelievable.

He couldn't want Draco to be more emotional, more like the Malfoy he had once been. No one in the world wanted that, except people who were dead. And Draco included the boy of his childhood among those people.

* * *

"Is it true that Ninian challenged you for leadership of the pack?"

June was the one who confronted him, the angle of her head impertinent. Harry could have grunted at her and kept walking. He didn't. He had only recently talked June around into thinking that he wasn't so bad after all, and she was someone that people would watch because he had battled her right before Malfoy got here.

"He did," said Harry, and leaned against the trunk of a tree, and looked around. He could smell the scents of other pack members, casually drifting in his direction, or with movements that would look casual if you didn't know the way they reacted. Their scents still seemed less crowding and overwhelming than the scents of Malfoy's emotions. "He said that he was sick of 'this,' without being more specific."

"But he was speaking to the Ministry negotiator," said Sarah Woolwine, stepping around in front of a tree. "I saw."

"Of course he was," said Harry, with a bored sigh that concealed more than he would let them know. "And he was trying to encourage the Ministry to interfere in our pack. He already tried to do that once before, the last time Unspeakable Malfoy was here."

Woolwine tensed, and the air filled with the whirling of anger. Harry considered Woolwine with the most interest. He had thought she was exactly like Ninian, willing to do anything to get him out of the pack leadership. But it seemed she drew the line at collaborating with the Ministry.

"What did he try to do?" Woolwine breathed.

Harry smiled at her. "Encourage the Ministry negotiator to support his rebellion in exchange for—something. I'm not sure exactly what. For that, you would have to ask him."

Woolwine marched off, probably to do exactly that, although Ninian wouldn't want to interrupt his isolation to talk to her. Other werewolves started arguing with each other about who would win the challenge, or telling Harry why they supported him, or making bets.

Harry grinned around at all of them. Sometimes he wondered why he had ever taken on the challenge of running the pack, and other times, he knew.


End file.
